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OTHER BOOKS BY BISHOP BASHFORD 

CHINA: An Interpretation 
GOD'S MISSIONARY PLAN FOR THE WORLD 
CHINA AND METHODISM 
WESLEY AND GOETHE 
THE OREGON MISSIONS 



THE DEMAND FOR 
CHRIST 

ADDRESSES AND SERMONS 

BY 

JAMES W. BASHFORD 

Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



Copyright, 1920, by 
JANE M. BASHFORD 



MAY I5IS20 



©CU565961 



CONTENTS 

PAGES 

Foreword 7 

I. Thb Gospel and the Crisis 9 

II. America and World Democracy 31 

III. Christianity and Education 52 

IV. Christ and Civilization 69 

V. Christian Unity 90 

VI^Man's Place in the Universe Ill 

VTly/QloTf to Become the Best Possible Preacher . 128 

VIII. Thb Reenporcement op Personality 143 

LX. Christian Idealism 168 

X. Revivals op Religion 189 

XI. Three Conditions op Conquering the World 202 

XII. Death Abolished 224 



FOKEWOKD 



Many requests have been received for the publication 
of a volume of sermons and addresses by the late Bishop 
James W. Bashford. I have been intrusted with the task 
of selecting and editing the manuscripts. For the most 
part the sermons are published as they were delivered. 
They are monthly lectures to the students of Ohio 
Wesleyan University, Baccalaureates, and occasional ad- 
dresses. 

The demand for Christ is the dominant thought not only 
of these sermons but of all Bishop Bashford's preaching. 
The trend of his thinking, the keenness of his spiritual 
insight, the sweep of his outlook, and the consuming 
passion of his life are revealed in these pages. 

This volume is sent forth with the fervent hope that 
the reader may find answer to the preacher's oft-repeated 
prayer — "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, 
and that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." 

Geoege E. Gbose, 
President of DePauw University. 

February 10, 1920. 



I 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 1 

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in 
one point, he is guilty of all. — James 2. 10. 

If any man come to me, and hateth not his own father, and 
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, 
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. — Luke 14. 26. 

We are experiencing one of the finest demonstrations of 
the value of an education which the race ever has wit- 
nessed. The danger of loose thinking and of deviation 
from moral standards finds supreme illustration in the 
present World War. Mathematicians tell us that were an 
inhabitant of our globe to start toward the largest star in 
the heavens, and vary from the straight line by the frac- 
tion of a second, this variation would cause him to miss 
the largest world in the universe. James, in our text, 
insists that the same scientific rigor applies in the gospel, 
that to vary from the straight course by so much as a 
single command causes one entirely to miss the goal. 
Jesus states the law of the kingdom in the strongest 
possible terms : "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 
This is the great and first commandment. And a second 
like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
Every power of one's being and all of each faculty and 
power must follow the law of love. Once again, Jesus 
states the necessity of supreme loyalty to God in the 

1 Baccalaureate Sermon, Ohio Wesleyan University, June, 
1915. 

9 



10 



THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



language of the text: "If any man cometh unto me, and 
hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and 
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own 
life also, he cannot be my disciple." Loyalty to God must 
be supreme, even at the cost of the dearest earthly rela- 
tionships. The church does not yet recognize the scientific 
thoroughness of the gospel. The New Testament teaches, 
and all human experience illustrates, that the slightest 
deviation from the laws of the spiritual kingdom is as fatal 
as the violation of the law of gravitation. 

It is true that our spiritual life differs from our ma- 
terial life in the fact that spiritual life depends upon the 
spirit, upon the heart, upon the motives of man. Jesus 
teaches that the poor widow who gave her two mites had 
cast more into the treasury than all the rest. This reckon- 
ing of spiritual gifts by spiritual tests apparently permits 
indifference as to material account. That is, the two 
mites may outweigh two hundred pounds in British gold. 
But just because the testing is spiritual it demands bal- 
ances more delicate than are required in weighing. And 
the slightest variation in the devotion affects the whole 
result. For instance, the mite was worth one sixth of 
a cent, and the widow in her poverty might readily have 
said, "I shall show great generosity by dividing my avail- 
able property and giving God one half and keeping the 
other half for myself." Undoubtedly, so large a sacrifice 
as that would have won the commendation of the Master, 
who never loses sight of spiritual motives, but tests each 
accurately and thus discovers some who shall be great and 
some who shall be least in the kingdom. But the widow's 
devotion to God did not vary by so much as a single mite^ 
with one third of a cent as her all, and in the perfection of 
her devotion her mite outweighed the pounds. 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 11 



The common impression as to the laxity of spiritual laws 
must arise in part from the impossibility of measuring 
spiritual devotion by external standards, and it springs in 
part either from a hasty study or from the lack of study 
of the New Testament. No man who opens his mind and 
heart to the words of Jesus demanding complete devotion 
to God, and no man who contemplates the flawless devo- 
tion of the Master can fail to see that the New Testament 
teaches the unswerving nature of spiritual laws as clearly 
as science teaches the undeviating nature of physical laws. 
The scientific thoroughness of the gospel explains why the 
partial acceptance of Christ's program by the race is end- 
ing in the spiritual, the intellectual, and the economic 
tragedies which amaze the world to-day. 

The most casual reader of the Bible must recognize that 
Jesus makes love the supreme law of the Christian life. 
In the twenty-second chapter of Matthew he is formally 
asked to name the great commandment in the law. He 
promptly accepts the challenge as furnishing an oppor- 
tunity for him to sum up revelation in brief compass: 
"Thou shalt loye the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first 
and great commandment." As if to make his statement 
complete, Jesus adds : "And the second is like unto it : Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." And then in order 
to exclude all other commands from the place of primacy, 
Jesus concludes: "On these two commandments hang all 
the law and the prophets." There can be no question as 
to the formal and solemn nature of Jesus's proclamation 
of the law of love as the supreme law of revelation. More- 
over, Jesus does not simply teach the law of love: He 
practices it and illustrates it by his life and by his death. 
He tasted death for every man. Paul finds the highest 



12 



THE DEMAND FOE CHKIST 



manifestation of Christ's love in that while we were yet 
sinners Christ died for us. Above all, Jesus makes love 
the law of God as well as of men. "God so loved the world, 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
Thus far we have stated two truths which are so clear as to 
need no further demonstration or illustration, namely, the 
undeviating character of spiritual laws, and that love is 
the law of the Kingdom. Let us now apply the principles 
of the gospel to the crisis which confronts us. 

We must bear in mind that the law of love does not 
exclude the love of country or of kindred, save so far 
as these violate or cause the slightest deviation from 
our love of God. Love of God is, indeed, the supreme 
command ; but love of neighbor is the second com- 
mand like unto the first. Moreover, the very form of 
the second command implies not only the love of neighbor 
but the love of self : "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." The gospel program provided for every interest 
of every race and nation and individual on the globe. It 
is not only applicable to our earthly life and capable of 
being realized here and now, but it is the only practicable 
program for the race. 

Turning now to a portrayal of the stages by which the 
law of love is slowly being incorporated in humanity, we 
may be able to understand the temporary pause — not a 
permanent halt — which the race is now making in the en- 
thronement of that law. The study will throw some light 
upon problems which are perplexing many to-day. A 
friend whose theology largely consists of a belief in the 
Second Advent, in view of the world crisis through which 
we are passing, said recently, "If Christ does not appear in 
the flesh before August, I shall abandon my entire cencep- 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 



13 



tion of the New Testament." The friend was entirely 
right in praying for the Second Advent, and we should all 
join in that prayer. But while every Christian prays and 
desires that Christ may come speedily, and while the entire 
Christian world recognizes that we are now witnessing 
supreme manifestations of the workings of the powers of 
darkness, nevertheless the present turmoil illustrates, not 
the breakup of modern civilization, but a temporary halt 
in its progress. And the stage of patriotism in which 
nations are abiding to-day is in itself a stage of progress 
as compared with the earlier stages. We are not, there- 
fore, witnessing the failure of the gospel, but the failure 
of a partial gospel and the necessity of the complete 
adoption of the teachings of Jesus as the only program 
which can save the race. 

God provided for the law of love, first, in the physical 
organization of the race. He has brought us into the 
world not by the process of direct creation, because separate 
creation would leave each human being entirely independ- 
ent of every human being. God has brought us into the 
world by the process of filiation. All of us have come into 
our lives through the marriage of our parents, and we are 
bound together in families. The law of love and the 
necessity of the manifestation of this law by service is thus 
woven into the very physical texture of the race. And the 
New Testament teaches that the family is a divine insti- 
tution by which God strives to call us out of pure indi- 
vidualism into family fellowship, family affection, and 
family service. This shows the divine determination to 
secure the embodiment of the law of love in the home life. 
But men have not remained upon this apparently natural 
stage of family service. The life of every human being is 
marked by acts of disobedience, by moments of passion and 



14 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



digression from one's ideals, by spiritual storms in which 
family affection has not remained at its highest. However 
we may explain the fact, the race has experienced a fall : 
degeneration is as much a datum of science to be reckoned 
with as is human progress. 

1. The Stage of Sensual Gratification. The lowest stage 
into which human beings are frequently falling is that 
of pure individualism, seeking its own gratification in the 
indulgence of physical appetites. This is a stage morally 
below the stage of animalhood; a stage in which the indi- 
vidual, forgetting the claims even of his family upon him, 
forgetting the claims of himself upon himself, losing self- 
respect and self-mastery, sinks into spiritual death. The 
drunkard, the man given up to the use of drugs or sur- 
rendering himself to the indulgence of lust, illustrates the 
lowest stage upon which human beings live. Fortunately, 
under evolution and the stern law of competition, people 
so surrendering themselves are speedily swept from the 
earth. There is possibly a stage of degeneration even 
below the stage of sensuality; a stage in which the man's 
condemnation of himself through the indulgence of his 
passions develops into a distrust and hatred of all other 
men and a desire to drag them down to his own level. This 
is a Satanic stage lying beneath the lowest stage of purely 
human degradation. Fortunately for the progress of the 
race Satan's kingdom is doomed because the swiftness of 
the sinner's death is gauged simply by the intensity with 
which he sins. These lower stages are not ordained by 
God for the human race, but are stages into which men 
have sunk through degeneration from the family standard 
into which they were born. 

Another fortunate and striking fact, furnishing hope of 
the race's redemption, is the emergence of the great move- 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 15 



merits against the use of intoxicating liquors and of other 
forms of self-indulgence upon the part of leading nations 
and races, springing out of the death grapple into which 
these nations are now locked. These are some of the by- 
products of the war, and are incidental proof that the 
war is not wholly without some good. 

2. The Stage of Selfish Ambition. A second stage in 
evolution, above the lowest and vilest stage, is the stage 
of individual selfishness manifested by personal ambition 
and worldliness. This is the stage in which men recog- 
nize the necessity of suppressing at least temporarily their 
grosser physical appetites and training at least for a time 
their powers of body, mind, and will for mastery over their 
fellow men in the struggle of the earthly life. Every 
boy who denies himself the low pleasure of idleness and 
self-indulgence, who determines to secure an education and 
prepare himself for future rulership, or who summons his 
powers to the mastery of his present tasks for purely per- 
sonal ends, is an illustration of a person in this second 
stage. All men who in their daily life display a temporary 
control of their lower passions, devote themselves to the 
cultivation of their powers, and struggle forward for the 
mastery of their fellow men, for the gratification of their 
own ambitions, belong to the second stage of evolution. 
The second stage has one element of good in it : it demands 
self-mastery, self -development, self-perfection. This stage 
illustrates the fact that despite the fall, the race originally 
was created on a divine and not on a Satanic plane. The 
second stage is higher than the stage of self-indulgence; 
and under the laws of evolution and the stern conflicts of 
human history, those entering the second stage soon master 
those sinking into the lowest stage. 

But this second stage rests equally with the lowest stage 



16 



THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



of civilization upon selfishness. It is thus evil at the core. 
It finds its most marked manifestations in the willingness 
of individuals to sacrifice the interests of their fellows and 
sometimes the welfare of their families for their own 
selfish ambitions. Men in business overreaching their 
neighbors and betraying their associates, men in politics 
deceiving their constituents and proving recreant to the 
solemn trusts committed to them for the sake of political 
preferment, and men in war sacrificing the lives of their 
fellows, and even going so far as did Napoleon in sacrific- 
ing his armies and the best interests of France for the 
sake of worldly ambition — all these illustrate the wicked- 
ness of this second stage in individualism. History is full 
of illustrations of the dire consequences which come to 
individuals who abide in the lowest stage, and to com- 
munities and nations, from men abiding in the second 
stage of civilization, that of personal ambition. Fortu- 
nately for the race, under the law of evolution and the 
struggle for survival operating in this case much more 
slowly but nevertheless surely, men who demonstrate to 
their fellows their supreme selfishness are doomed to ulti- 
mate disappointment and death. The Napoleons and 
Caesars and Alexanders never have founded long-lived 
dynasties, and they sowed the seeds of death in the nations 
which they ruled. 

3. The Stage of Family Affection and Service. The 
third stage in evolution, far above the stage of brute indul- 
gence and of personal ambition, is the family stage. This is 
the first stage ordained by God: the stage into which all 
men are born; and the two former stages already portrayed 
are stages of degeneration and no part of the original plan 
of creation. The strength of the third stage of civilization 
arieee from the unity of its members. All are familiar 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 17 



with the parable of the father with the seven sons, who took 
seven sticks and tying them together offered the bundle to 
the oldest son to break. He found it impossible to break 
the bundle ; but when the father untied the bundle even the 
youngest son broke the largest stick, thus illustrating the 
contrast between individual weakness and family strength. 
This law that in union there is strength has found count- 
less demonstrations in family, in business, in social, in 
political, and in national life. The group whose members 
cooperate with each other in warfare or in industrial 
struggles easily supplants any number of individuals who 
contend simply as individuals, each for his own interests. 
Here is the reason why laborers have as much right to form 
labor unions as have men of business to organize partner- 
ships and trusts. The unit of society in China until re- 
cently has been the family, and not the individual ; and the 
fact that the family has been the unit of Chinese civiliza- 
tion helps account for its lasting qualities. We are por- 
traying in this third stage of civilization a plan of life 
ordained of God for the embodiment of the law of love, 
and for the progress of society and of the human race. 

4. The National Stage. The fourth stage of civilization 
is the national stage. In the stern struggles of competi- 
tion families are obliged to group themselves together into 
states and nations for the sake of self-preservation. 
Through family affection man is led out of himself and 
lives in part at least in his father and mother, his brothers 
and sisters, his wife and children. But above the family 
is the state, and the nation is a divine institution by which 
God calls us out of the narrower life of the family or the 
clan into the broader and larger devotion to the state. 
Patriotism is higher than devotion to family interests, just 
as family love is higher than devotion to personal interests. 



18 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



In these comparisons we are supposing the motives to 
be the same. The two lower stages of civilization, personal 
indulgence and personal ambition, are to be absolutely 
condemned because in each of these the motive is selfish, 
and selfishness is the very essence of sin. In the two 
higher stages of civilization, in declaring patriotism to be 
superior to devotion to the family interests, we are suppos- 
ing the motive to be that of service in the family and in 
the nation. Of course, if a family is held together simply 
by motives of greed, for the purpose of preying upon 
weaker families, the duty of an individual member of 
that family is not to the family but to the other families 
or individuals upon whom that family is preying. So, if 
a nation is held together by predatory motives, the duty of 
the individual is not to say "My country, right or wrong," 
but to resist the nation until it respects the mutual rights 
and privileges of its members, and respects the equal rights 
and privileges of its neighbor nations. But with the same 
motive in love manifested by service operating in the 
family and in the nation, patriotism is a higher virtue than 
devotion to family interests because it calls for a wider and 
more universal application of the law of love. Moreover, 
in the competition of modern life, any race whose civiliza- 
tion is based upon the family is doomed in the struggle 
with races whose civilization rests upon devotion to the 
nation as a whole. Just because China has been made up 
in the past of small groups of individuals bound together 
as families, and just because on the other side of the straits 
a far smaller number of Japanese have recently become 
inspired with a devotion to the entire Japanese race and 
are moving as if by a single impulse, Japan has become 
stronger than China. We are glad to say in passing that 
the transition of civilization from the family to the na- 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 19 



tional stage is the most marked characteristic of the last 
fifteen years of Chinese public life, and the time is speedily 
coming when the three or four hundred millions of China, 
welded together as a single nation, will be invincible to any 
foes which may be hurled against her. 

Professor Seeley, of Cambridge, was accustomed to tell 
his students that nationalism was the key to the civilization 
of the nineteenth century. He cited the twenty-five Ger- 
man kingdoms uniting to form the German empire, the 
eight principalities of Italy uniting into the kingdom of 
Italy, the welding together of the discordant States into 
the American Union, and the knitting together of the 
far-flung races and dependencies of England into the Brit- 
ish empire, as the products of the national ideal operating 
in the history of the last century. Surely, the spirit now 
prompting Chinese leaders to rise above family interests 
and devote their lives to the Chinese nation as a whole, 
indicates that China in the twentieth century is following 
in the footsteps of Europe and America. And is not this 
spirit far nobler than that which prompted even so great 
a statesman as Li Hung Chang to exploit China largely in 
the interests of his own family? And is not the spirit 
which is lifting millions upon millions of humble Chinese 
to that plane of patriotism in which they are willing to 
lay their lives upon the altar of their country nobler than 
the spirit which already prompts countless multitudes of 
them to lay their lives upon the family altar? Some of 
us recall the baptism which came in the great struggle 
from 1861 to 1865. Those of us who were boys recall the 
young men whom we regarded as our natural leaders enter- 
ing the army, sometimes as individuals, more frequently 
as little groups and sometimes as entire companies, and 
starting for the distant battlefields. Our hearts yet thrill 



20 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



as we recall the reports which reached home describing 
some great battle and giving the names of the wounded 
and the dead. We enshrined in our hearts the names of 
our dead brothers and cousins and friends and transfigured 
them into heroes in our youthful imaginations. Who 
doubts that the tens of thousands of Americans who laid 
down their lives at Antietam and Gettysburg, that the 
hundreds of thousands of Japanese who laid down their 
lives at Port Arthur and on the plains around Mukden, 
who doubts that the hundreds of thousands of Germans 
who are pouring out their life blood for what seems to 
them the very existence of their fatherland are — some of 
them blindly and unconsciously, but all of them in reality 
— following in the footsteps of Him who trod the heights 
of Calvary ? In the Horatii dying at the bridge for Eome, 
in Arnold von Winkelreid gathering the spears of his 
country's enemies into his own breast and dying for his 
native land, in the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands 
of Germans, English, French, Eussians, Americans, Jap- 
anese who have poured out their lifeblood like water for 
their native lands — do we find in such conduct illustrations 
of the weakness and sentimentality of human nature? 
Does not such conduct represent, rather, the highest and 
noblest qualities of human nature, and reveal the sacrifice 
which will create the new humanity in Christ? God for- 
bid that German, or English, or French, or Japanese 
soldiers should misunderstand our message or fail to 
appreciate our admiration and love for them while we now 
attempt to show that even such heroism is dangerous and 
deadly because it does not go the full length of Christ's 
commands. 

In a word, nationalism does not represent the supreme 
embodiment of the law of love, and for that reason it can- 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 21 



not represent the final stage of civilization. In practice it 
denies that God hath made of one blood all the nations to 
dwell upon the face of the earth, and it discredits Christ's 
supreme act of sacrifice in tasting death for every man. 
Moreover, just as the slightest deviation at the start from 
the straight line which leads from our earth to Sirius 
would in the infinite journey thither cause one entirely 
to miss that globe, so the difference which exists between 
patriotism and the perfect law of love is sufficient to cause 
any nation or any race which accepts patriotism as its 
supreme law to miss its goal and perish by the wayside. 
Accepting Professor Seeley's maxim that nationalism has 
been the key to the political history of the nineteenth 
century, we must recognize that France under Napoleon 
at the opening of the century; that Great Britain in her 
opium war with China, 1840-42 ; and the United States in 
her war with Mexico in 1849, all grievously sinned through 
national selfishness. But a fair study of the history of 
the century shows that each of these nations abandoned 
the national ideal before it perished by the wayside. More- 
over, a fair study of present history shows that Germany 
through her autocratic form of government, through the 
domination of militarism among the leaders of the nation, 
through the attempts of her thinkers and writers to justify 
the theory that might makes right as the corollary of their 
interpretation of evolution, and through the apparently 
unanimous acceptance of the German program by the com- 
mon people, has fallen more fully under the spell of this 
dangerous delusion than any other nation in the world 
to-day. And when a whole nation becomes obsessed with 
the conviction of their divine right to dominate a continent 
or their neighbor nations through military force, and when, 
despite all reasonings and protests, that nation proceeds to 



22 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



exercise that right by military force, and when that nation 
goes further and attempts again by military force to 
compel neutral nations to submit to the destruction of 
property and life contrary to the laws of nations and of 
humanity, we see no way of meeting the issue save for the 
neutral nations to resist the encroachments of barbarism 
with all the moral, financial, and the military resources at 
their command. 

Already the baneful effects of substituting patriotism 
for universal law of love are felt throughout the world. 
Dr. Eeinsch, our minister to China, in a remarkable book 
entitled ''World Politics,'' called attention fifteen years ago 
to the fact that since modern inventions had brought all 
races on the globe face to face, nationalism is an exceedingly 
dangerous doctrine and must be quickly transcended if na- 
tions and races are to maintain their neighborly relations. 
Dr. Eeinsch went so far as to predict the danger to our 
civilization which would arise unless nationalism yielded 
to the humanitarian ideal. Already we are witnessing the 
illustration of Dr. Reinsch's thesis. Xo man can measure 
the economic loss which is arising from this world war, 
with its unlimited destruction of property. If the United 
States is fortunate enough not to be dragged into the war, 
we may have a little temporary prosperity in supplying 
nations, on credit, that which they must have in their 
stricken condition. But the TJnited States can no more 
prosper for any long period with her neighbor nations 
prostrated by calamity, than a store could prosper if all the 
patrons of that store were to suffer the destruction of their 
homes. The first effect of an unexpected destruction of all 
the homes in Delaware with all their contents to-night 
would be a great expansion of trade upon the part of all 
provision and clothing stores to-morrow, and of the brick 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 



23 



and lumber yards the day after to-morrow. For a few 
days the merchants might seem to prosper. But every 
Delaware merchant knows that permanent prosperity in 
this city is impossible with calamity smiting all their 
customers. The people of the United States who look for 
permanent economic prosperity in this land on account of 
the misfortune of their neighbor nations are as unwise as 
merchants would be in this city hoping to prosper 
permanently through the misfortune of their patrons. The 
world will be half a century recovering from the economic 
loss of the war; and the economic progress of the neutral 
nations, including the United States, will be similarly 
retarded. Again, the loss which is befalling Europe and 
the human race through the death of young, unrecognized 
but potential Lincolns and Washingtons, Pasteurs and 
Humboldts, Edisons and Darwins, Brownings and Shake- 
speares is simply incalculable. Here is a loss to humanity 
which is simply irreparable. 

Finally, our civilization must be set back or at least 
halted for a generation or more by reason of the race 
hatreds which are being kindled by this mighty struggle. 
War is the most stupid and barbarous method of settling 
difficulties ever devised by Satan and fastened upon the 
human race. Moreover, the fundamental aim which 
furnishes the only rational ground for entrance upon this 
war is equally immoral and absurd. What right or what 
reason is there in the nature of the case for the Germans 
to resolve to put their feet upon the necks of the Slavs, 
or for the Slavs to undertake to dominate the Germans ? 
The very motive which prompts the fight is a violation of 
Christ's fundamental teaching of the Fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man. 

Turning to the outcome, while we hold that national 



24 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



ambition and selfishness must be overthrown, there must 
be no destruction of the German people, and there must be 
no destruction of the older and nobler civilization of 
Germany — the civilization of Kant and of Hegel, of Luther 
and the Reformation. 

The overthrow of militarism should be accomplished by 
argument and reason and by arbitration, provided Ger- 
many will stop murdering citizens of neutral states until 
we can state our case and she can give her answer. If it 
is impossible to induce Germany to cease her outrages upon 
humanity during the period of arbitration, we should at- 
tempt to secure this result first by breaking off all diplo- 
matic relations with her; second, by binding together all 
neutral nations in a world league to insist that the Allies 
and Germany alike shall observe the rules of international 
law and not wage war upon humanity while engaging in 
their national struggles. If protest by a world league is 
vain, then the league should bind themselves together to 
sever all trade relations with the offender, not only for the 
time during which the offenses continue but for a period 
in proportion to the continuance of the offenses — say for 
one year in return for every week during which the 
offender continues to violate the rights of humanity. If 
the protests of the international league, and economic 
pressure and economic threats fail to bring nations to 
reason, then the league should resist force with force. 
There must be a destruction root and branch of the phil- 
osophy that might makes right, and with that of militar- 
ism and autocracy, if it takes all the wealth, and all the 
blood of the civilized world to accomplish that destruction. 

The general trend of the struggle and its final termina- 
tion can be easily foreseen. If God is the Creator and 
controller of the universe, and if love is the fundamental 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 25 



law revealed by him for human conduct and practiced by 
him in the control of the universe, the destruction of that 
nation which attempts to establish the doctrine that might 
makes right is inevitable. Europe struggled for some 
fifteen years against the selfish ambition of Napoleon. No 
king or general in the present conflict is comparable in 
military capacity with Napoleon. But if it took fifteen 
years of European war to overthrow a single individual, 
need we be amazed that the ambition of a nation is not 
overwhelmed within ten months after the struggle began ? 
But just as surely as we are in a universe of law, just so 
surely is it a law of human nature that individuals and 
nations and races resent all attempts imposed upon them 
to control by force, and just so surely will this struggle 
continue or break out afresh until that nation or that race 
which attempts to dominate others meets destruction. 

5. The Stage of the Kingdom of Grace. But what is 
the final remedy for the sin into which Prance and Great 
Britain and the United States have fallen in the past and 
from which Germany is suffering to-day ? The only final 
remedy is the complete enthronement of the law of love. 
While the family is a divine institution by which God calls 
us out of individual selfishness into family life, and while 
the nation is a divine organism by which God calls us out 
of the narrower life of the family into the larger service 
of the state, nevertheless above the family and above the 
nation God has placed the church; and the church is a 
divine organism by which God calls us out of the narrower 
service of the nation or particular race unto the universal 
service of mankind. The prayer in which Christ taught 
us to say, "Our Father which art in heaven"; the New 
Testament declaration that God hath made of one blood 
all families to dwell upon the face of the earth; the 



26 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



inspired revelation that Jesus Christ tasted death for 
every man; and the last command furnish us the most 
perfect embodiment of the law of love. "Go ye into all 
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature/* gives 
the church the divine prerogative of becoming the highest 
embodiment of the final civilization of the race. 

Unfortunately, however, the church never yet has 
entered into her heritage. Had the church fully en- 
tered into her privileges, and had she embodied among 
her followers Christ's last prayer for unity, this world 
conflict would never have been possible. A moment's 
reflection will convince us that the various denominations 
instead of entering into their divine heritage frequently 
have been guilty of a reversion to a lower stage of civiliza- 
tion. Acceptance of the denominational ideal is simply 
the reversion of the Christian Church to the national ideal, 
and the acceptance of the national program. In this 
regard, denominationalism abandons the ideal of a uni- 
versal Church of Christ, forgets Christ's last prayer for 
the unity of believers; and at least some churches hold as 
their goal the universal domination of Christendom by 
divine fiat more fully than any nation accepts as her goal 
the universal domination of the race by its superior power. 
Any church which lifts the denominational banner to a 
place beside the cross, which aims at universal spiritual 
dominion, is more surely doomed than any nation which 
aims at universal political dominion. Even consecrated 
human nature never will recognize the right by divine 
fiat of a single individual or family or race or church to 
dominate the world; and the more fully the human race 
awakens to Christ, to a consciousness of its sonship to God, 
the more intensely will it resent the assumption of any 
right to rule based upon claims of a divine prerogative. 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CEISIS 



27 



We do not hold that there should be a universal 
abandonment of denominational life, and a merger of all 
churches into a single, huge organ called "The Church of 
Christ," any more than we believe in the attempted aboli- 
tion of all national and racial lines and of an attempted 
union of all in a World Eepublic. Paul's picture of the 
Christian Church represents it as a body composed of many 
members, all united and coworking. "If the whole body 
were an eye, where were the hearing ? • . . But now hath 
God set the members every one of them in the body." De- 
nominationalism forgets that Christendom is a body with 
different organs: each church tends to identify Christen- 
dom with itself ; and members limit their service of Christ 
to the service of their particular church. The Christian 
churches have failed to recognize the great body of Christ, 
of which each at best is only a single organ, almost as fully 
as nations and races have failed to recognize the equal 
rights of alien races. There should be a council of 
Christendom among the churches, and each should enter 
this council with the right and the desire simply to offer all 
other churches those elements of its Christian life which 
have constituted its peculiar glory and given it its peculiar 
power ; and then ask all the other churches simply to take 
or leave its gift as may best suit their own conditions and 
best contribute to their own advancement. This Council 
of Christendom would need no secular or legal power. It 
should issue no decrees ; it should give advice only where 
advice is sought; the largest authority it should ever 
assume to exercise should be the New Testament right of 
declining fellowship with organizations which refuse to 
obey what the overwhelming majority of Christendom 
decides to be the fundamental laws of the kingdom. In- 
deed, we believe the exercise by a world league of nations 



28 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



of this power of disfellowshiping recalcitrant members, 
especially with the suspension of trade, of travel, and of 
all political relations would in most cases enable the world 
league to exercise authority needful without resort to the 
sword. 

We have a striking illustration of the operation in the 
vegetable and animal kingdoms of the law of life mani- 
fested by service. Certain forms of vegetable and animal 
life have disappeared from the globe within recorded 
history. On the other hand, certain useful grains and 
vegetables like rice, wheat, and maize, and fruits like 
apples and pears, are spreading over the globe, not because 
of their own inherent capacity to uproot and destroy all 
competing forms of life, but because of their capacity to 
serve mankind even to the death of the individual grains 
and vegetables which render that service. The same is true 
to a more marked extent of certain animals. While several 
species of wild animals have become extinct, sheep and 
cattle and chickens and pigs and horses, which have ren- 
dered indispensable service to the race, have been carefully 
preserved by men. Sacrifice is the law of life. As the 
earth becomes more crowded and as the necessity for using 
all the ground for the support of grains and animals which 
contribute to the welfare of the race becomes more absolute, 
the operation of this law will become so marked that it may 
constitute the most striking feature of the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms a thousand years from now. Prob- 
ably if the grains of wheat and rice, and if the sheep and 
cattle could talk, they would speak of some strange Divine 
Providence which preserves and multiplies them far be- 
yond any increase possible by their unaided efforts. 

So races and civilizations, churches and religions are 
destined to survive in proportion to their capacity to serve. 



THE GOSPEL AND THE CRISIS 23 

If, as seems to be the case in Asia, Christianity proves more 
helpful to the toiling millions ; if it contributes more fully 
to the uplift and progress of the races than does Buddhism 
or Mohammedanism, then Christianity will survive, just 
as the wheat and the rice survive, because of their contribu- 
tions to the human race ; and the less helpful religions and 
civilizations will disappear just as the tallow dip disap- 
pears before the electric light. The same law applies to 
denominations. The divine assurance of our existence de- 
pends upon the service we render to the world. If 
Methodism could abandon all ambition to be great, and, 
like the Master, spend herself in service even unto death, 
like him she would have a glorious resurrection on the 
third day and eternal life thereafter. Men of ten say that 
the ideal of Jesus is impossible. Upon the contrary, the 
principles of Jesus form the only basis of practical states- 
manship. His idealism is not only practical but essential 
for the peace of nations and the survival and progress of 
churches and of races. We marvel that any race or church 
familiar with the first principles of the Bible could dream 
of exaltation by divine fiat. The only election of the Bible 
is the election to service, and to supremacy only so far 
as leadership springs from service. Only as churches and 
nations and races fling away ambition and are possessed by 
a passion for service is rulership or even survival possible 
for them. "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he 
that loseth his life for my sake shall find it" unto eternal 
life. 

The one condition of sovereignty recognized and fulfilled 
by God in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord is service. 
God is our rightful Ruler, not because he is infinitely 
stronger than we, or infinitely greater than we, but because 
he is our Creator, our Redeemer, our Preserver, and 



30 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



Eternal Benefactor. God's rulership springs from his 
Fatherhood. His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, comes 
to the leadership of the race by his original service in our 
creation, for "without him was not anything made that was 
made," and by his further service in our redemption 
through his death upon the cross. Jesus Christ represents 
the law of the universe ; and nations which depart even by 
a slight degree from the divine order are doomed as surely 
as an individual starting for Alcyone on a tangent varying 
by a second from a straight line will miss the goal, even 
though that star be billions of times larger than our earth. 

If the World War leads to a conviction of sin upon the 
part of all nations over our national ambitions, and espe- 
cially if we are led to the acceptance of the program of 
Jesus, then out of this world crisis there may gradually 
emerge the United States of Europe not only with a 
Supreme Court at The Hague, but with a European Com- 
mission with some legislative as well as judicial powers, 
and above all with executive powers embracing the control 
of a European army to maintain order and enforce the 
decrees of the court. Out of the crisis there may come 
a federation of powers which shall spread far beyond 
Europe and embrace America and Asia and the other con- 
tinents of the earth, until at last it culminates in Tenny- 
son's dream of the "parliament of man; the federation 
of the world." Above all, may this world crisis lead to the 
enthronement in hearts now occupied by ambition of that 
law of love manifested by the service of the race which has 
placed Christ upon the throne of the universe, and which 
insures a seat at his right hand to races and nations and 
persons who follow his footsteps. 



II 



AMEEICA AND WOKLD DEMOCRACY 1 

The conviction that the king or emperor is ruler by 
divine right and that all other individuals and peoples 
exist for the state is the essence of autocracy. The con- 
viction that government is a means to an end, that the 
welfare of the people constitutes the end, and that govern- 
ment is of the people, by the people, for the people, is the 
essence of democracy. The United States is the first suc- 
cessful experiment in democracy in the history of the 
world. 

January 22, 1917, President Wilson delivered his 
famous address before the Senate on the League to Enforce 
Peace, In this address he maintained "that no nation 
should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or 
people, but that every people should be left free to de- 
termine its own policy, its own way of development, 
unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with 
the great and powerful/ 5 ' This means a democracy of 
nations. April 2, 1917, Mr. Wilson followed his plea for 
the democracy of all nations by his famous address before 
both houses of Congress in which he summoned the people 
of the United States to join with the Allies in attempting 
to overthrow German autocracy and make democracy safe 
throughout the world. This is individual or personal 
democracy. 

April 4 the Senate, by a vote of eighty-two to six, and 
April 6 the House, by a vote of three hundred and seventy- 
*From Good Housekeeping, August, 1917. 

31 



32 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



three to fifty, responded to Mr. Wilson's summons by the 
declaration that a state of war exists with the German 
empire by reason of her warlike acts upon the United 
States. April 14 the House by a unanimous vote, and 
April 17 the Senate by a unanimous vote, established a 
war budget of seven billion dollars for the prosecution of 
the war in the interest of the democracies of the world. 
This far-reaching and unselfish action, with the further 
sacrifices which these votes make necessary, will probably 
put the United States at the head of world democracy 
for the twentieth century. 

The Rise and Pall of Personal Democracy 

Probably before the close of the twentieth century all 
thoughtful people will recognize that the United States, of 
all nations, exercised the deepest political influence upon 
the human race during the nineteenth century. Down to 
the opening of that century the civilized world did not 
believe in a government of the people. With the excep- 
tion of a few Christians, most of whom had been driven 
to distant lands by their refusal to submit to tyranny, the 
church, down to 1800, united with the state in upholding 
the divine right of kings. Coming events which now seem 
probable, if not inevitable, will show that democracy is 
slowly winning the victory over the human race. That 
democracy has been slowly winning its way during the 
past half -century is shown in the advance of parliamentary 
institutions in every country in Europe, in Canada, in 
Australia and New Zealand, in South Africa; in the fact 
that every British colony left free to create its own political 
institutions has adopted a written constitution modeled 
after the American prototype ; in the struggle for the right 
of existence upon the part of the Russian Duma and the 



AMERICA AND WO ELD DEMOCEACY 33 



Chinese Parliament, even though divine prerogatives are 
claimed for the emperor; in the nascent and victorious 
struggle of women for the admission of their half of the 
race — by no means the weaker in insight or in morals — 
to large influence in shaping the institutions under which 
women as well as men must live; and above all in the 
present war, which we may all hope is the death grapple 
of autocracy with democracy. 

The conditions that have bred the present unrest of the 
human race are in part economic as well as political. The 
fact that the nations before the present world war were 
spending $6,400,000,000 annually for armies, navies, 
fortifications, pensions, interest on war debts, and loss of 
productive power by the removal of soldiers from indus- 
trial life; the fact that before the present war the public 
debt in proportion to the wealth of the various nations, as 
compared with the United States, was resting with sixfold 
pressure upon the people of Great Britain, with elevenfold 
pressure on the people of Germany, with nineteenf old pres- 
sure on the people of Japan, and with twenty-onefold 
pressure on the people of Eussia ; the fact that the indebt- 
edness of the warring nations already has added to the 
previous indebtedness the incredible and incalculable sum 
of seventy billion dollars, and the irreparable loss of the 
very flower of European manhood as the inevitable result 
of an attempt by rulers without consulting their peoples 
to thrust autocracy upon Europe and the world, all portend 
the inevitable downfall of militarism and autocracy in the 
not distant future. If, by some strange mischance, Ger- 
many, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey should win 
the present war, the triumph of autocracy would be only 
temporary. Economic causes will force the civilized 
world to limit militarism ; and when militarism disappears, 



34 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



autocracy will fall. The Kaiser cannot accomplish the 
task in which Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon failed. 

Again, the gradual spread of popular education, the de- 
termination of laborers to secure a larger share in the 
products of industry, the outflow of settlers into the empty 
portions of the globe, the awakening of the Far East, the 
discoveries of the added possibilities of plant life under 
the Burbanks, and of mechanical power under the Deisels, 
the Wrights, the Edisons, are all stirring the human race. 
An aroused humanity will increasingly find its voice and 
express its will. But humanity finding its voice and hav- 
ing its will done, under whatever form of government, is 
democracy. Hence, the political philosopher may consider 
the problem of democracy as in process of solution, and he 
may give the United States credit for inaugurating the 
greatest political achievement of the human race thus far. 

But while the battle is well begun, only a childish opti- 
mism regards the war as over. The tremendous struggles 
that are under way in Europe, the slower and more dis- 
couraging struggles that must attend the growth of parlia- 
mentary institutions in India, Africa, Mexico, and Turkey, 
the upheavals that will accompany the struggles of social- 
ism, already beginning in Europe and sure to arise in 
America and other parts of the world, the struggles for the 
prohibition of the liquor traffic, for the withholding of all 
legal protection from vice, and the profound social changes 
that may accompany the extension of suffrage to woman, 
all combined promise many a royal battle between the 
forces of progress and of reaction during the twentieth 
century. 

Americans often have had their patience tried by the 
delays of legislators in responding to the will of the people, 
by legislation in favor of the privileged classes, and in some 



AMERICA AXD WOBLD DEMOCRACY 



35 



cases by the corruption of State Legislatures and 
municipal councils. Hence even Americans have been 
forced to modify republican institutions by the government 
of cities through commissions and by the introduction of 
the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. We were 
compelled to modify local institutions still more seriously 
in the middle of the last century by the transfer of power 
from the States to the nation. It may increase our 
political modesty to remember that Xew Zealand has 
carried representative institutions further than has the 
United States, that Great Britain, under Asquith and 
Lloyd-George, and Germany, partly through the initiative 
of the emperor, have gone farther in the care of public 
health, in old age pensions, and in general relief of the 
working classes than has the United States, and that most 
European cities are notably better governed than are our 
American cities. It ought to contribute further to the 
political modesty of the whole Western world to know that 
the Chinese, handicapped by political traditions and by 
age-long corruption of officials, nevertheless have made far 
greater progress in overcoming the opium evil than have 
the Western nations in overthrowing intemperance. 

The Future Problems of Democracy 

Surely, further struggles for democracy are before our 
own nation and especially before the world. To dream 
that the prohibition of the liquor traffic, that the settle- 
ment of the present World War and the problems of 
Ireland, Poland, and the Balkan nations, and that the 
maintenance of a league to enforce peace embody no grave 
problems and involve no future struggles for representa- 
tive institutions is to be blind to the great forces that are 
struggling for the mastery of the modern world. Even 



36 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



the United States, which has led in the inauguration of the 
political struggles for the extension of human freedom, by 
no means has reached her goal, as our Negro problem, 
our problem of the exclusion of the yellow races, and our 
labor problem prove. These great struggles for the exten- 
sion of democracy throughout the earth, for the increase 
of economic efficiency, and especially for the protection of 
the lives and morals and enlargement of the economic 
opportunities of the masses, will not reach their final solu- 
tion until they are settled upon the basis of righteousness 
and of love manifested by mutual service. Never has the 
outcome of building upon mere force and self-assertion, 
though attempted by the strongest powers on earth, had 
such ghastly illustration as in the present war. The sub- 
stitution of righteousness and love for selfishness and force 
is the only solution of our problem; and this solution is 
only another name for an advance of the human race in 
applied Christianity. 

National Democracy 

Already our review brings us in sight of another pressing 
problem: the relation of local self-government to the gov- 
ernment of the nation. Li Yuan-hung, in charge of a 
nation which in its possibilities is among the most potent 
and in its activities among the most impotent nations on 
earth, is being compelled to face the perennial problem of 
civil government, namely, the relation of the parts to the 
whole, of the provinces to the nation. A similar struggle 
took place in the latter half of the nineteenth century in 
Japan and a little earlier in Germany, in Italy, and in the 
United States. A similar struggle is to-day confronting 
Great Britain with her Irish problem, Eussia and Germany 
over Poland, Austria-Hungary, and the Balkan states. 



AMEEICA AND WORLD DEMOCEACY 37 



And yet I believe that the present struggle will demon- 
strate the fact that the republican form of government, 
allowing greater liberty of political action and of economic 
development to individuals and very large self-government 
to states and provinces and dominions, will in a long in- 
dustrial struggle or in a Great War prove superior to com- 
pletely centralized government. Apparently, both Ger- 
many and Japan were making more rapid industrial ad- 
vancement, and therefore, apparently, their state control 
of industry furnished a more efficient industrial organiza- 
tion than was to be found in Great Britain or the United 
States. This impression, I believe, was due to the fact 
that it requires one or two generations for a false theory 
to produce its inevitable results in a state, whereas one 
or two decades will suffice to demonstrate its falsity in 
private enterprise. Both Germany and Japan, according 
to all indications, were skirting national bankruptcy 
through excessive taxation on the one side and on the other 
side through not encouraging individual initiative in busi- 
ness. Moreover, in war, when individuals and states must 
make large temporary surrenders to a central national 
authority, the deliberate choice of a people to embark in 
war will in the end lead them to endure greater hardships 
for a longer time, to make greater sacrifices, and to de- 
velop greater initiative in prosecuting great campaigns 
and in engaging in the deadly struggles of battle than will 
be possible on the part of a people robbed of the oppor- 
tunity for initiative and of the responsibility for conse- 
quences. 

But if despotism is to be avoided and progress assured, 
local governments must enjoy large freedom. While much 
liberty may have to be surrendered in war, nevertheless war 
is not the normal or ordinary condition of the race ; and in 



38 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



this normal condition much will be gained through free- 
dom. The claim of certain Western States to gains in 
civilization through woman suffrage, the claim of Kansas 
to have the greatest wealth per inhabitant through prohibi- 
tion, the claim of Wisconsin to progress in agriculture and 
political reforms inaugurated through her State university, 
and the claim of New Zealand to economic progress 
through socialistic legislation, together with the oppor- 
tunity to verify or correct these claims through the study 
of these experiments, furnish marked illustrations of the 
advantages of local self-government for political progress. 
On this ground the United States should not abandon its 
ideal for the self-government for the Philippines. How- 
ever, instead of establishing a fixed date for the inaugura- 
tion of self-control, we should pledge self-government 
whenever eighty-five per cent of the population under sixty 
years of age can read and write; and we should extend it 
to the various islands as rapidly as each reaches that educa- 
tional goal. And we should promise the inhabitants of the 
Philippines at the close of this process either complete in- 
dependence as a republic or such a federation with the 
United States as may then be agreed upon by themselves 
and us. 

The Eternal Question oe States' Rights 

But here again, if any one dreams that the problem of 
the relation of the states to a nation or of the dependencies 
to an empire has been solved, he has only to contemplate 
the perplexing problem of an Irish Parliament and of the 
maintenance of Austria-Hungary ; he has only to watch 
the determination of California, of Canada, of South 
Africa, and of Australia to exercise sovereign rights in 
excluding the people of J apan, China, and India from their 



AMERICA AND WORLD DEMOCRACY 39 



territories, and the grave danger in which such action must 
involve the nations of the earth. 

If Lloyd-George or Mr. Asquith or Mr. Balfour can 
frame a federal government that will weld together the 
world-wide dependencies of the British empire and make 
them all integral parts of a world-wide democracy, he will 
rise as much above Bismarck in world statesmanship as 
Bismarck rose above Metternich in European politics. It 
is possible that by the solution of this problem of the rela- 
tion of the parts to the whole the British people may 
exercise as deep an influence in world politics during the 
twentieth century as the United States exercised during 
the nineteenth century. But here again the problem can 
be solved only upon a basis of justice and of love manifested 
by service ; and this spells the advance of nations in applied 
Christianity. 

International and Interracial Democracy 

If, as Professor Seeley maintained, nationalism is the 
key to the political history of the nineteenth century, inter- 
nationalism will prove the key to the history of the twen- 
tieth century. Probably Great Britain in dealing with 
India and the United States in dealing with the Philip- 
pines will be called to such renunciation as is always im- 
plied in motherhood. Instead of attempting to incor- 
porate the three hundred million peoples of alien races on 
the opposite end of the globe into the British empire on 
equal terms with the Canadians and Australians, Great 
Britain may be called to set up India as a great Asiatic 
nation, bound by strong ties, or, better still, united by some 
sort of federation with the mother who adopted her and 
nourished her into national life. 

Nor is the United States exempt from the race problem. 



40 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



In addition to the Philippine question the United States 
has a graver unsolved problem in the Negro race. The 
Negroes have been granted political freedom, guaranteed 
by the constitution; but despite the guarantee they are 
virtually disfranchised in the South. Will the people of 
the United States be able to show the world that two races 
as distinct as the white and the black can live side by side 
in the same country, in the enjoyment of the same political 
and economic rights, in the maintenance of the purity of 
each race, and of peaceful and mutually helpful relations 
between the two? If so, we shall furnish the world a 
solution of one of the greatest problems in applied Christi- 
anity. 

Our relations with the Japanese and the Chinese and 
the relations of Great Britain and her colonies with these 
two races and with the Indian races reveal a larger and 
more dangerous international and interracial problem. 
The division of the vast Chinese empire among the various 
nations, or the control of China by a single foreign nation, 
would mean the control or absorption of the commerce of 
the Pacific by that nation or those nations. The question 
of foreign trade is already a vital one and will become more 
and more important and vital to our growth as the country 
advances. 

Providence has given us a strategic place for large com- 
mercial and moral influence in the Paeifis basin. Every 
one recognizes our long coast line upon the eastern side of 
the Pacific, with the great harbors of San Diego and Los 
Angeles, of San Francisco and Seattle, of Tacoma and the 
entire Puget Sound. But few people realize the value of 
our coast line across the northern borders of the Pacific, 
which carries American sovereignty to Chichagos Harbor 
in Attu Island, 186° 47' west longitude, or almost 



AMEEICA AND WOELD DEMOCEACY 41 



to the borders of Asia. This stretch of American sea- 
coast across the northern borders of the Pacific furnishes 
the shortest route from San Francisco to Tokyo; and on 
account of the Japanese Current it is always free from ice. 
Moreover, it abounds in harbors like Eesurrection Bay, 
Chignik Bay, Denmark Bay, Dutch Harbor, Unalaska 
Bay, Constantine Harbor and Chichagos Harbor, each of 
which is large enough to hold the entire navy of the 
United States. These harbors probably will be recognized 
before the close of the twentieth century as the most im- 
portant geographical discovery of the nineteenth century. 
These, with our present possession of the Philippine 
Islands and the possibility of our always maintaining a 
great harbor there, and with our possession of Guam and 
the Hawaiian Islands, give the United States the most 
strategic position on the Pacific basin of any nation. 

However great the strength of the United States, it is 
not safe in forecasting the future to underestimate the vast 
potential resources of China. The Chinese as individuals 
are perhaps the strongest and hardiest people on earth. 
Four facts stand out in regard to this people: 

1. The Chinese have the oldest living civilization, and 
they are the world's oldest nation. Their history began 
with that of Egypt and Babylon and Assyria. China has 
historical documents extending back to the middle of the 
eighth century before Christ; and Confucius, who lived 
five hundred years before Christ, affirmed that the 
historical records which he possessed carried him back 
twenty-two hundred years before Christ. This carries 
Chinese civilization back four thousand years. 

2. A priori, it would seem far more reasonable that a 
small and select race like the Jews or the Greeks might 
maintain its civilization and its natural life for an un- 



42 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



paralleled period. But the Chinese are not simply the 
oldest race, they are the most numerous single race upon 
the earth; they number between three and four hundred 
millions. 

3. However weak the nation, wherever the Chinese as 
individuals compete with the members of other races and 
nations in neutral ports, such as Hongkong and Singa- 
pore, they soon become the dominant factors in industrial 
and commercial life. Even the white man must have 
large capital if he is to maintain his position of fancied 
superiority. 

4. The Chinese show no signs of exhaustion through 
their long career; on the contrary, they have transformed 
their government into a republic, are eagerly accepting 
Western inventions, and are entering upon a new stage of 
civilization. 

These four facts make the Chinese the most remarkable 
Tace in existence. Indeed, C. H. Pearson, in National 
Life and Character, after the fullest comparison of Chinese 
civilization with other civilizations of the world, reluc- 
tantly expresses the depressing conclusion that the Chinese 
will in time destroy white competition in industries and 
commerce within their area and in the end will dominate 
the Pacific basin ; and he gives some very solid reasons for 
his conviction. Upon the whole I do not share his fears. 
But all students of China recognize that the race which 
Pearson portrays in such threatening terms must be 
reckoned with in our forecasts of the struggles that will 
take place around the Pacific basin. 

Brewing a Mightier World War 

Thus far the white race has seized the control of 
Australia, North and South America, Europe and Africa, 



AMEEICA AND WOELD DEMOCEACY 43 



and of the northern and southern portions of Asia. A still 
more menacing manifestation of the spirit of white autoc- 
racy is the exclusion of the yellow races from five of these 
six continents and from the northern portion of Asia. 
When we remember that the people of China, India, Japan, 
and Malaysia number some eight hundred millions, the un- 
fairness of tlieir exclusion from five continents and their 
limitation to one half of the sixth continent becomes 
clear. Such treatment of our yellow brothers is neither 
Christian nor statesmanlike. Moreover, under the laws 
of the universe it will bring its inevitable conflict, just as 
the present efforts of strong nations to dominate the earth 
have brought on the present dreadful and disastrous 
conflict. 

Before the war the white races in Europe were doubling 
once in a hundred years, but with a decreasing rate of 
increase. The war is destroying the very flower of Euro- 
pean manhood and must be followed by a physical de- 
terioration and a slower increase of the white races. On 
the other hand, the Chinese are doubling their population 
once in eighty years, while some writers hold that the 
Japanese are doubling their population every fifty years. 
If, therefore, the white races refuse the yellow races access 
to five continents, another century will not have gone by 
until we may be facing a conflict between the races, in 
comparison with which the present world war may seem 
a mere skirmish. 

One has no right to marshal these grave problems unless 
he sees some possible solution of the danger. But a solu- 
tion is within our reach. No forecast of the outcome is 
possible without some insight into the material and spir- 
itual forces and the principles of civilization and religion 
that are destined to survive and to dominate the race 



44 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



during the coming centuries. At this point the struggle 
is clearly between a materialistic interpretation of evolu- 
tion and the Christian interpretation of human life. 
Abraham Lincoln said in opening his great debate with 
Senator Douglas, "If we could first know where we are and 
whither we are tending, we could best judge what to do 
and how to do it." 

The intellectual struggle between the rival interpreta- 
tions of evolution and views of life began with the publica- 
tion of Darwin's Origin of Species, in 1859. Darwin 
summed up the remarkable doctrine that has revolution- 
ized the modern world in the phrase, "the survival of the 
fittest." Darwin selected the word "fittest" as the condi- 
tion of the survival because the word "strongest" did not 
quite express the full meaning that he had in view; for 
Darwin was a supporter of Christian missions, and did not 
rest in a crude materialism. But inasmuch as in his argu- 
ments and illustrations he used the word "fittest" fre- 
quently in the sense of "strongest," all thinkers with a 
predisposition toward a materialistic interpretation of 
science began substituting the latter word for the former. 
Upon the other hand, those who favored a Christian 
interpretation of history failed to master the truth in 
Darwin's volumes, but carelessly rejected his entire teach- 
ing as materialistic, thus joining with the other parties in 
fixing a false interpretation upon the indisputable facts 
that Darwin had discovered. 

The doctrine of evolution was almost immediately ap- 
plied to man, and here the white race interpreted the 
doctrine in accordance with its preconceptions. Our race 
consciousness had led us to the conviction that the white 
race is the strongest race upon the earth, and under the 
teaching of evolutionary science, is therefore destined to 



AMEEICA AND WOELD DEMOCEACY 45 



survive and dominate all other races. But the German 
people, with their characteristic thoroughness, made a 
more logical embodiment of the theory than any other 
nation. This found expression in the writings of 
Nietzsche, Treitschke, Bernhardi, and a host of lesser 
thinkers. It was the perception of the inherent contra- 
diction between this philosophy of force and the Christian 
philosophy of love that led some Germans, thoroughly 
saturated with scientific materialism, to make a far more 
vigorous and persistent attempt to undermine the histor- 
ical character of Christianity than any other writers. 

The Fate of Aggressive Nations 

Unfortunately, most of the nations in modern history 
have embodied the materialistic doctrine of might rather 
than the Christian doctrine of right. The exploitation of 
Mexico by the United States in 1848, the division of 
Poland between Eussia and Germany, the steady conquest 
of the ruder races of the world by England, her greed 
in thrusting the opium traffic upon China, and the single 
fact that all the unorganized portions of our globe have 
been recently divided as spoils among modern nations — all 
illustrate the effect of human selfishness and a false phil- 
osophy upon political activity. I am convinced that the 
present war, in which all the aggressive nations are being 
called upon to bear incalculable losses, is the answer of 
Almighty God through human history to the doctrine that 
might makes right. 

Japan's notable triumph over Eussia in the war of 
1904-05 was the first notice of the revolt of the yellow 
races against the wicked doctrine of white supremacy. 
Unfortunately, however, Japan's triumphant entrance into 
national life among the great nations of the earth, while 



46 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



serving more thoughtful statesmen as an ominous warning 
against the doctrine that might makes right, was im- 
mediately interpreted by the partisans of militarism as a 
confirmation of that doctrine. They said at once that the 
doctrine had a wider application than they realized, and 
that even a "despised" colored race which cultivates might 
to a sufficient extent can take its place among the all- 
conquering races of the earth; and Japan herself, instead 
of rejecting the false doctrine that had tended to keep the 
yellow races in subjection, adopted Herbert Spencer as her 
patron philosopher and was confirmed by him in a ma- 
terialistic interpretation of evolution. 

The First Law of Natuhe 

A closer study of science, instead of supporting the 
doctrine of selfishness, supports the doctrine of service. 
It is said that self-preservation is the first law of nature. 
This is a lie, and comes from the father of lies. Not self- 
preservation, but the preservation of the species to which 
the individual belongs is the first law of nature. Grass 
will defy every effort to prevent it bearing seed by im- 
mediately starting to grow again after every cutting. If 
it is kept continually cut until the summer is passing and 
the fall approaches, it will attempt to head out long before 
it reaches its normal height in order that it may bear seed 
for the preservation and propagation of the species. The 
deepest law of animal life is not self-preservation, but the 
law of motherhood or service. 

The law of service is grounded in the very nature of life 
upon our globe because it is essential to the life of those 
who are served. Species have increased after their kind; 
there are probably countless stalks of each useful grain, 
like wheat and rice and corn for instance, in existence 



AMERICA AND WORLD DEMOCRACY 47 



to-day as compared with a single stalk ten thousand years 
ago. This is due not so much to the superior strength of 
these grains in comparison with other grains in which they 
are in competition as to the will and effort of the human 
race for whose existence wheat and rice and corn are 
essential. In the same manner the political theories and 
the forms of religion that seek the support of man must 
depend for their survival upon their power to minister to 
the race. It is simply because democracy appeals to the 
fundamental instincts of humanity, it is because it 
ministers to the needs and aspirations of the peoples of 
every nation vastly more than autocracy can ever do, 
that under the stern and uncompromising law of the sur- 
vival of the fittest autocracy is doomed and democracy is 
certain to survive. 

God is thrusting Christianity into the welter of pagan 
religions and apparently is saying to all these rival forms 
of faith, "Serve the world or perish." The difficulty with 
polytheism is that it tends to prevent the development of 
any strong type, even an outstanding evil type of man- 
hood. Ceres demanded her worship through the unremit- 
ting cultivation of the soil; Mars demanded worship 
through the neglect of the soil by men in order to engage 
in slaughter; Bacchus and Venus demanded worship 
through the neglect of both soil and slaughter for the sake 
of self-indulgence. One who worships all pagan gods 
consequently cannot become even a strong devil. No 
strong or consistent personality is possible to one who 
accepts the pull of the passions in opposite directions each 
as the call of a god. Paganism fell before Mohammedan- 
ism through the latter's use of the sword ; but the strength 
of the Mohammedan's right arm, which wielded the sword, 
was due to the fact that he believed in one God and held 



48 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



himself in obedience to a moral code, which, if it was not 
lofty, was at least single and consistent. But Mohamme- 
danism, with its doctrine of the subjection of womanhood, 
with its doctrine of human slavery, with its contempt of 
modern science, with its paralyzing doctrine of fate, has 
lost the control even of its own uncounted millions to 
Christian states, simply because in the hard struggles of 
earthly history Christian states develop the stronger type 
of manhood. Who doubts that in the long run Christi- 
anity, with its doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man, with its open Book, and its doctrine 
of a future life, will supplant all pagan faiths simply be- 
cause it does more for the race that adopts it than any 
other possible competitor? 

Yuan Shih Kai, with an insight into the essence of 
Christianity that revealed the remarkable mental grasp of 
the pagan ruler, said to the Rev. Dr. H. H. Lowry, "You 
Christians have brought about this revolution, and you 
must, therefore, help us in our struggle for the republic." 
Dr. Lowry protested that the missionaries had not meddled 
in politics and must not be held responsible for political 
changes. Yuan Shih Kai answered, "Meddling with 
politics was not essential to the production of a revolution ; 
when the Christians came to China proclaiming the 
Fatherhood of God and teaching their converts to say, 
'Our Father who art in heaven/ they made despotism for- 
ever impossible." 

And Yuan was right. Is it not a remarkable comment 
on the blindness of the political leadership which main- 
tains autocracy and is committed to the doctrine that 
might makes right that it fails utterly to interpret the 
deeper movements of the modern world? If the law of 
service in politics lacks scientific warrant, how is it that 



AMEEICA AND WOELD DEMOCEACY 49 



Washington and Lincoln are slowly gaining the political 
influence among all races which Alexander and Napoleon 
are losing? If autocracy is grounded in science, how 
account for the fact that in the stern struggles of the 
modern world it is swiftly losing its hold upon all races? 
If democracy and the service of the people are an iridescent 
dream, how explain the fact that already in the twentieth 
century despotism has fallen, in Mexico, in Turkey, in 
Portugal, in China, and in Eussia, and that more than 
six hundred million people in these lands are struggling 
for republican institutions ? These nations may be a long 
way from the goal of "government of the people, by the 
people, for the people," but at least they demonstrate the 
fact that humanity is struggling toward that goal. 

Democracy's Preeminent Duty 

A final manifestation of democracy must result in a 
juster treatment of the yellow races. We are not called 
upon to throw open the United States to the exploitation 
of all the races of the earth; upon the contrary, if our 
country is to render the highest and most lasting service 
to the world we must preserve American ideals by stem- 
ming our immigration tide. How can these ideals be pre- 
served and the United States yet deal justly with these 
alien peoples? First, by education and moral influence 
we must lift up and transform the black people who are in 
our midst until they can participate on equal terms with 
us in our political and economic struggles. Second, we 
cannot justly deny, and we can safely grant, to the handful 
of Chinese and Japanese who are now living in the United 
States the right to become American citizens if they so 
desire. Third, we can then say to all the nations of the 
earth that in order to preserve American ideals we shall ad- 



50 THE DEMAND FOE CHBIST 



mit all races into this country and in proportion as these 
races accept these ideals by becoming American citizens; 
that we will admit each year to our country five per cent of 
all English, Irish, Danes, Germans, Poles, and all other 
races, including the Chinese and Japanese, who are already 
American citizens. We are assured that the races of north- 
ern Europe have so largely accepted American citizenship 
that this rule will not cut down immigration from these 
countries by a single person. It will decrease immigration 
from southern Europe, from which we are now receiving 
our most ignorant classes and those least fitted for and 
least willing to accept American citizenship. It would 
promote the incoming of Chinese and Japanese upon ex- 
actly the same basis as those from other nations, but the 
number of these people now in the United States is so 
small that this ratio of admission would not endanger in 
the least any American institutions by the influx of the 
yellow races. 

I am assured by those who claim to speak for Japan that 
this solution of the problem will prove acceptable to her, 
and I can, I am sure, say the same for China. At any 
rate, the proposal is just, and the United States can face 
any crisis if she has justice on her side. But international 
safety and justice alike demand an amendment to our Con- 
stitution taking out of the hands of any State the power 
to precipitate the nation in a war by State legislation 
which violates our international obligations and insults 
alien races. All we call for is an extension of President 
Wilson's guarantee of the right of freedom and self-govern- 
ment to all the nations of the earth and of his principle of 
democracy, including even the freedom to come to our 
country, to all races and nations upon equal terms — the 
"safe and sane" terms just outlined. 



AMEBIC A AND WOKLD DEMOCBACY 51 



Lord Curzon closed his volume on the political problems 
of the Far East with the quatrain : 

"We sailed wherever ship could sail; 

We founded many a mighty state; 
Pray God our greatness do not fail 
Through craven fear of being great." 

This is the appeal to England's ambition, to the white 
man's lust for conquest. In view of the American ideals 
that have been carried to the Far East, of the teachers and 
missionaries who are laboring in distant lands, we would 
prefer to change the quatrain and make it sing : 

We went where ship could never sail; 

We sowed the seeds of church and state; 
Pray God our greatness do not fail 

Through false ambition to be great. 



Ill 



CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 1 

But speaking truth in love, may grow up into him in all 
things, which is the head, even Christ. — Eph. 4. 15. 

We wish to show this afternoon the relation between 
education and Christianity. Our fundamental proposition 
is that education, when logically or consistently developed, 
leads to Christianity. This thesis will become clear by a 
comparison of the aspirations of modern educators with 
the elements of Christianity as set forth in our text. The 
correspondence between the key words which mark the 
tendency of modern culture and the words of the text is so 
close that the first perception of this analogy startled me. 
I thought this literal correspondence could be only verbal. 
Further reflection convinces me that the analogy arises 
from an identity of aim and not from a mere external 
resemblance. True education is only a lower form of 
Christianity. Christianity is the higher education. 

Truth 

The first key word in education is "science." Compare 
the course of study in any college to-day with the courses 
at Oxford or Bologna three hundred years ago, and you 
will see that almost every addition to the old curriculum 
has been made in the department of natural science. By 
science, teachers do not mean a body of scattered and un- 
related facts. Science does not exist until the facts are 

x Sermon preached before the students of Ohio Wesleyan 
University, 1891. 

52 



CHKISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 53 



classified, correlated, and built up into an organic system. 
Science not only enables us to know facts but to understand 
the philosophy of them, and from their known laws to 
predict the future. Our knowledge of electricity well 
illustrates our meaning. Electrical science is in its in- 
fancy. The objection to the use of electricity is that we 
do not understand its nature sufficiently to always control 
it or to foresee its results. There is, however, a vast 
difference between our knowledge of electricity, by which 
we perform some of the miracles of modern civilization, 
and the wild dread of this terrible agent which filled the 
Indian's heart when he saw its destructive tendencies. 
When, therefore, the facts bearing on any subject become 
so intelligible that we can understand the philosophy of 
that power and predict its results, we have a science relat- 
ing to that subject. 

Now, the exact correspondent of the word "science" in 
the physical realm is the word "truth" in the spiritual 
kingdom. Truth is more than a mere fact, or series of 
unrelated facts. It is systematized knowledge of spiritual 
phenomena. The facts of the spiritual realm are corre- 
lated so that they become intelligible, so that you under- 
stand their philosophy, and from them can predict certain 
results. Just as the savage is afraid of electricity and is 
its slave, because he knows simply the fact that it kills 
but does not understand its possibilities of helpfulness, 
so the unconverted man is afraid of the Bible and does not 
enjoy spiritual conversation, because he sees simply the 
isolated facts of restriction and punishment, but has not 
the slightest conception of the spiritual possibilities of a 
Christian. He no more comprehends how truth can make 
him free than the Indian understands how electricity out- 
speeds the winds in performing his errands for him. 



54 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



Truth, therefore, is spiritual science, while science is truth 
in regard to the material world. Thus the highest char- 
acteristic of modern education is the first requisite of 
Christianity. The science of which modern education is 
continually speaking is nothing less than the lower form of 
that truth about which the gospel is forever telling us. 

Truth, however, is greater than science. It embraces all 
knowledge of the physical world as well as of the spiritual 
world. A true child of God is always anxious to learn what 
his heavenly Father is doing or has done in the material 
world. A true definition of science would make it identical 
with truth. Science should embrace a knowledge of man, 
of his origin and destiny, and of the forces that are above 
man, as well as the powers below him. So long as modern 
science remains engrossed with the mastery of material 
phenomena it embraces only the lower part of truth. But 
why should the student be eager to learn all about the 
natural history of bugs and worms and shut his mind 
against the higher knowledge of the human soul and of 
God? The Greek motto was, "Know thyself. " The 
Eomans finally reached the conviction that the highest 
study of mankind is man. Daniel Webster, in one of the 
most profound speeches he ever delivered, utters these 
weighty sentences: "The earliest and most intellectual 
want of our human nature is the knowledge of its origin, 
its duty, and its destiny. Before man knows of his origin 
and his duty, he knows that he is to die. Then comes the 
most urgent and solemn demand for light that ever pro- 
ceeded from the anxious broodings of the human soul : 'If a 
man die, shall he live again V That question nothing but 
God and the religion of the Bible can solve. Eeligion does 
solve it and teaches every man that he is to live again, and 
that the duties of this life have reference to the life which 



CHKISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 55 



is to come. Hence it is that the effort of the great and the 
good has ever been to sanctify human knowledge, to baptize 
learning into Christianity " 

Surely, if we maintain the scientific spirit, if we keep 
our minds open to all knowledge concerning the physical 
realm, we will not be less eager to acquire this higher 
knowledge concerning man and the powers that are above 
him. Do you not see, therefore, how the logical and con- 
sistent cultivation of the scientific spirit brings the soul 
face to face with spiritual phenomena and with God ? Do 
you not see how this aspiration of the soul after science 
finds its larger and fuller expression in the desire of the 
Christian for truth ? 

Speaking 

Secondly, modern education aims to be practical. The 
young people who are crowding this university are not 
pursuing knowledge simply for its own sake. You are not 
studying simply for a degree. You are seeking knowledge 
that you may use it in after life. One of the marked 
changes in modern education is the practical cast which 
it has taken under the pressure of these busy days. You 
remember that one of our trustees, President Hayes, has 
desired that we establish schools of Applied Science on 
the Barnes property. Why does he wish this addition to 
our already crowded curriculum? Because he sees that 
the education of the twentieth century must be practical. 
Bacon said : "Teach your children when young that which 
they will practice when old" ; and Bacon's idea is becoming 
more and more the guiding principle of modern education. 
The attack upon the classics has been due to the false 
notion that the study of Greek and Latin does not fit young 
people for the duties of modern life. Under the force of 



56 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



this attack, one of the oldest universities in America has so 
modified her curriculum that a young man may receive 
the degree of A. B. without even learning the Greek 
alphabet. The reply to this attack must not consist in the 
lofty distain of the practical tendencies of modern culture. 
We must do as the universities of Germany have done. 
We must show by actual test that the discipline of three 
or four years in the classics will better develop all of the 
faculties of the young man and will make him more suc- 
cessful in the struggles of modern life than an equal num- 
ber of years spent in any other subject. This demand for 
practical education has given rise to innumerable technical 
and professional schools. It is one of the most marked 
characteristics of our modern life. 

Now, this distinguishing trait of modern culture is 
identical with one of the highest characteristics of Chris- 
tianity. Paul is not content that we should simply know 
the truth. In his statement of the elements of the Chris- 
tian life, he demands that we shall speak the truth, that we 
shall use it constantly for our own upbuilding and for the 
upbuilding of our neighbors. If Christianity were simply 
or predominantly a system of truth, it would be the light 
of men and not the life of men. But one of the most 
marked traits of Christianity is the emphasis which it lays 
upon conduct as over against mere abstract knowledge. 
We may be, in the language of John Wesley, "almost as 
orthodox as the devil and yet no nearer the kingdom of 
heaven." Christianity does not despise doctrine. It is 
the truth. It is the light of men. But it is emphatically 
something more than the truth. It is the life of men. So 
the modern church has been laying less and less stress upon 
creeds and more and more stress upon conduct. We do 
not, and I trust we never shall, identify Christianity with 



CHKISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 57 



morality. Christianity is the union of the soul with God. 
But Christianity in modern times has embodied itself as 
never before in good works, in the founding of colleges, in 
the establishment of benevolent institutions, in the popu- 
larization of knowledge, in the modification of government, 
and in missionary efforts on an unprecedented scale for 
the conversion of the world. No candid student of modern 
history can glance at the Christian Church for a moment 
without admitting that she is not only touching the intel- 
lect but calling out the noblest activities of humanity. Do 
you not see, therefore, how this second aspiration of 
modern culture finds its highest expression in the 
Christian life? 

We may go further and say that no man who is truly 
practical can fail to be a Christian. The world points to a 
man who has acquired an education and then mastered a 
profession and then secured a good position in his profes- 
sion as the embodiment of practical wisdom. Why? 
Because by slow and careful preparation he has laid the 
foundation for the highest success. He has fulfilled the 
conditions by which he may secure a competency and large 
influence for the next half century. The world points to 
a man who, by business sagacity, already has established 
a successful trade and laid the foundation of a large 
fortune as a still higher example of practical wisdom. 
Why ? Because he has already secured a sufficient amount 
of money to make himself and family comfortable for life. 
A man who denies himself in the present and either culti- 
vates the talents or secures the fortune which will make 
him comfortable for the next half century is, in the con- 
ception of our modern age, the embodiment of practical 
wisdom. But if practical wisdom demands that we shall 
prepare ourselves for comfort during the next fifty years- 



58 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



of our lives, does it not also demand that we shall prepare 
ourselves for the highest blessedness and usefulness during 
the next fifty thousand years of our lives? Our practical 
wisdom is too short-sighted. It does not fully recognize 
man's possibilities. That man who has acquired fame and 
fortune for his world, but who has not enriched his soul, 
and who must, therefore, enter upon his eternal career as 
a beggar, has not shown the highest practical wisdom. If, 
therefore, your desire for practical preparation for life 
leads you to deny yourself and to study hard for five or 
ten years in order that you may be comfortable and exert 
an influence over your fellow men for the next half century, 
will not the same practical tendency urge you with in- 
finitely more force to make yourself rich toward God, to 
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, in order that you 
may be useful and blessed during the uncounted millen- 
niums that are before you? Do you not see, therefore, 
that in view of immortality and man's infinite possibilities, 
this aspiration for practical wisdom secures its full expres- 
sion only in the Christian life ? 

Grow 

The third byword in education is "growth." Educa- 
tion aims at something more than knowledge, or skill. 
Every noble university has a higher motto than science, 
or art. In fact, the very word "educate" points to a 
loftier ideal than either the mastery of the truth or the 
use of that truth for securing material gain. Education 
means the drawing out or leading out of all our faculties. 
It aims at the development of the personality of the 
student. Somebody has said that if you put a Mark Hop- 
kins on one end of a log on a Western prairie and a young 
Garfield on the other end, you have the elements of a 



CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 59 



college. You have matured manhood striving to develop 
character in the youth. The development of character 
should be the real aim of every university. Magnificent 
libraries, costly museums, splendid buildings, a large corps 
of teachers — these are all means to an end. These may 
all exist and the university fail of its end. Upon the other 
hand, if there is real manhood and womanhood in the 
teachers, and if there are the elements of nobility in the 
students, and if the touch of these teachers develops that 
nobility in the students, then the university has reached 
its goal, and is sending forth its finest product. Arnold 
of Eugby, Mary Lyons, Horace Mann, and men connected 
with this university have been great teachers because they 
have had the power to inspire in the hearts of young people 
a noble ideal, and then to help these young people by 
personal example and sympathy to realize that ideal. 
Some of you have heard the deans of law and medical 
schools, in delivering the diplomas to the graduates, tell 
them that knowledge is not the end, and that skill in the 
use of that knowledge is not the chief end of education. 
They have solemnly urged graduates to use their knowl- 
edge for the upbuilding of society and the perfection of 
their own characters. Even these secular schools recog- 
nize that there is something deeper and loftier in education 
than knowledge or skill. So they aim to impress upon 
their students the supreme importance of right motives, of 
noble conduct. The criticism which the Eoman Catholic 
Church is hurling with such tremendous force against our 
common school system is that it has divorced religious 
culture from the training of the intellect. They say truly 
that education cannot be complete which gives skill to the 
hand and knowledge to the brain, but neglects to give 
training to the conscience. I am sure that the American 



60 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



people will not abandon the common school system at the 
demand of the Eoman hierarchy. But I am sure, upon the 
other hand, that, if our system is to be maintained, it must 
add to the discipline of the intellect the training of the 
heart and the cultivation of the hand. Education cannot 
be complete and cannot satisfy the human soul until it 
secures growth in character as well as skill in using 
knowledge. 

Do you not see that this third aspiration of education 
is identical with the aim of the Christian Church? The 
American schoolhouse has been simply the primary depart- 
ment in which our children have been trained for their 
earthly duties. The American Sunday schools and 
churches and Christian colleges are the true high schools 
of the land, in which the children are securing that devel- 
opment of character which alone can make them worthy 
citizens of the American republic and of the republic of 
God. Do you not see, therefore, how the secular school 
blossoms out into the Sunday school, how the college blos- 
soms out into the church, how education blossoms out into 
Christianity? So we repeat, true education is a lower 
form of Christianity, and Christianity is the higher 
education. 

Notice also that this conception o^ education, which 
demands growth upon our part, and adopts as its chief end 
the development of character, is utterly impossible from a 
materialistic point of view. How impotent is the demand 
of the materialist, that we shall surpass our ancestors, after 
he has assured us that we are simply the product of forces 
which have gone on before ! What a mockery is his 
demand that we shall overcome our environment, and 
triumph over our difficulties, when he has already taught 
us that we are simply the product of our environment! 



CHKISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 61 

What inspiration would there have been to a Shakespeare 
or a Des Cartes to transcend his age, and to give laws to 
generations yet unborn, if these men had once thoroughly- 
believed that they were simply the impotent products of 
the forces gone on before ! A United States senator once 
visited the birthplace of Patrick Henry. As he stepped 
out of the cars and gazed upon the lofty mountains, he 
exclaimed with delight: "No wonder Henry was such an 
orator. These mountains could not have produced a type 
of eloquence less sublime than his." An old farmer at 
the station replied, "These mountains have been here a 
long time, stranger, but they have not produced another 
Patrick Henry." Patrick Henry was not the product of 
his physical environment. It was the lofty soul within 
him which spoke in sublime eloquence. Christianity does 
not come to man with the discouraging declaration that he 
at best is only an animal, and then make the impotent 
demand that he shall grow into a Christlike character. 
The educated Christian, indeed, is not troubled as to the 
method by which the heavenly Father has produced the 
human body. He does not care whether the heavenly 
Father has produced man by the method of evolution or of 
direct creation. But he is sure that God has breathed into 
the human soul, and that man has become a living spirit. 
So the church demands growth into a Christlike character, 
and presents as the rational ground of that demand man's 
divine origin and his lofty destiny. Do you not see how 
this aspiration of education for the development of a 
higher character upon the part of children than their 
ancestors possess, or their environments would produce, 
finds infinite scope, if we are the children of the living 
God? 

The wonderful Sphinx of Egypt has an animal body 



62 



THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



ending with a striking human face. These old Egyptians 
were sufficiently prophetic to believe that the animal 
nature might be developed into human nature. Back of 
Egyptian art, indeed, was a more barbarous art in which 
the human body ended with an animal face. Modern 
materialism has returned to this degraded form of art, and 
adopted it as its philosophy of life. Only as we believe 
that man was originally created by God, only as we believe 
with the ancient prophet that "the spirit of man is the 
candle of the Lord," only as we see Christ taking our 
human nature up into his divine nature, and expanding it 
into a Godlike humanity, and thus showing our divine 
capacity — only by such faith can we gather the impulse 
and inspiration which will enable us to grow up into Christ 
our living Head. 

In All Things 

We have thus found the science of the schools blossoming 
out into the truth of the Gospels ; the practical tendency of 
modern culture blossoming into the divine life of the 
Christian; the development of character which all best 
schools aim at finding its highest expression in the growth 
of man into the image of the Father. But there is one 
other, the fourth, characteristic of modern education. One 
other word has of ten been on the lips of the teachers of this 
generation. I have myself used it this afternoon again 
and again. One of the most influential teachers of modern 
England has been Matthew Arnold. He was for years at 
the head of the school system of that country. His belief 
was that modern education did not need more science, more 
art, more growth upward, so much as it needed more of 
breadth and refinement. His watchword was "culture"; 
by which he meant the discipline of every faculty of the 



CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 63 

mind and the harmonious development of all. He was for- 
ever preaching to us that these could come only by the 
harmonious blending of various forms of education. Now 
this broadest and latest aspiration of modern education 
finds its full expression only m the holiness which the 
Bible enjoins upon us. Matthew Arnold must have felt 
unconsciously that his desire was in some measure voiced 
by Christ; for despite all his doctrinal skepticism he was 
forever coming back to the Bible as, in his judgment, the 
best instrument for securing that breadth of culture which 
he craved. 

Now, turn to the text and you will find the idea which 
Matthew Arnold expresses by the word "culture" here 
expressed by the two words "all things." We are not 
simply to grow up into Christ intellectually. We are not 
simply to have our souls made obedient to the divine will, 
while our intellects remain untouched by the divine light. 
Least of all are we to have our emotions quickened while 
the intellect remains untouched and the will unsubdued by 
Christ. Christianity is the opening of the whole mind 
to Christ, the entire subjection of the will to him, and 
the quickening of all our emotions through him. Holiness 
means, as the old Anglo-Saxon word implies, wholeness, or 
completeness in God. It is the development of every 
faculty to its highest power and its devotion to its highest 
use. We have heard people talking about holiness who 
seem to be "sanctified in spots." They have consecrated 
some part of their nature fully to Christ. But they prac- 
tically know little of the breadth and sweep of consecration 
implied in this word "holiness." How infinitely Christ 
lifts up and transforms Matthew Arnold's idea of culture 
in the loftiest command which was ever given the human 
soul — "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which 



64 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



is in heaven is perfect!" How marvelously Paul widens 
and expands this aspiration of modern culture in his 
prayer that we may be "filled with all the fullness of 
God" ! I no more understand how this poor, puny, finite 
nature is to be filled with all the fullness of the infinite 
God than I understand how the Atlantic ocean can be 
crowded into a pint cup. But this is the inspired prayer 
in our behalf. Do you not see that the culture after which 
modern education is aspiring finds infinite enlargement in 
the holiness of the Gospels? Can we as earnest students 
be seeking the largest, the broadest, the best-rounded de- 
velopment of our mental natures, and yet be content to 
leave the imagination unchastened, the heart uncultivated, 
the spiritual faculties palsied by our lack of a Christian 
life? You have seen certain persons suffering from the 
rickets — an abnormal development of the head or of one 
shoulder, while the rest of the body is puny and dwarfed. 
We almost turn away with a shudder from the sight of a 
person with this physical deformity. But if by some 
divine enlightenment we could see our inner natures, how 
many of us would be found suffering from the spiritual 
rickets, the mental nature abnormally developed, while the 
spiritual faculties are dwarfed and dying ! I am sure that 
a genuine and candid aspiration after culture can only end 
by bringing us to him who was the only perfect Man, and 
leading us through him to be transformed into the image 
of our heavenly Father. 

Into Him 

We have now found the science of tha schools blossoming 
out into the truth of the Gospels; the art of the schools 
developing into the life of the Christian; the aim of the 
schools for character finding its satisfaction only in that 



CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 65 



divine love which forms the image of Christ within our 
hearts; the culture of the schools leading our hearts to 
pant after the holiness of the gospel. But Paul could 
not close his portrayal of the elements of the Christian life 
without bringing us to Christ himself, which is the fifth 
point in our discussion. So his exhortation demands not 
simply truth, not simply the use of truth, not simply 
growth, not simply growth in all things, but growth into 
him which is the Head, even Christ. Here Christianity 
steps distinctly beyond our human systems of education. 
And yet it only transcends and does not violate their laws. 
Nay, I may say that this process by which Paul recognizes 
that our development must come through union with 
the supernatural finds its strict analogy in every lower 
kingdom and in education itself. The supernatural ele- 
ment in the Gospels is not a stumbling-block to reason. 
It is, rather, an inspiration to humanity. The mineral 
kingdom has no power to lift itself into the vegetable 
kingdom. The miracle of inorganic nature is performed 
and dead chemical elements lying in the earth beneath our 
feet are transformed into the beauty of the lily and the 
fragrance of the rose only when the living seed reaches 
down into this mineral kingdom and takes up these dead 
elements and transforms them into living matter. So the 
vegetable has no power to lift itself into the animal king- 
dom. Vegetable matter becomes transformed into animal 
tissue and enters upon a higher life only as some living 
animal reaches down and takes up the vegetable and by 
some magic power of assimilation transforms it into bone 
and muscle. So also the mind of the child is lifted to a 
higher plane of education only as the parent or teacher or 
older companions reach down and quicken the capacity for 
knowledge in the child through their higher intelligence. 



66 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



Every student in this university can master the problem of 
gravitation after Newton has once discovered the law and 
has told it to others and others have explained it to us. 
But not one student in a million would have been able to 
discover the law until this higher intelligence had grasped 
it and brought it into contact with our less regal powers. 
Take the brightest child in this city and shut it off in its 
infancy from all contact with other minds; leave it to 
unfold by its own inherent power ; let no intelligence reach 
down from above to lift it up to a higher platform ; let no 
human being teach that child to speak ; let no human mind 
communicate with that child's mind — despite all its native 
energy that child will remain almost as ignorant as an 
idiot. Education consists of a higher intelligence, touch- 
ing and quickening lower intelligences, lifting them up to 
its higher platform, and showing them its broader visions. 

Now, are we egotistical enough to think that there are 
no powers in this universe above man? Standing face to 
face with the manifestations of power in a thousand 
worlds aside from this globe upon which we live, witnessing 
as we do the manifestations of a wisdom which infinitely 
transcends our own, are we ready to maintain that there 
is no higher wisdom and no greater power in this world 
than that possessed by man? No, I am sure that we are 
all reverent enough here this afternoon to say that man 
is face to face even in the physical universe with some 
strange Power which infinitely transcends his own. If this 
is true, how are we to advance to the higher platform 
occupied by these higher intelligences except by the same 
process by which the forces of each lower kingdom are 
lifted up and become possessors of the kingdom above 
them ? This is exactly what was done in the incarnation. 
Here Christ stooped to our human nature, lifted it up and 



CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATION 67 

expanded it into something of his own proportions. Here 
is just the difference between Christianity and morality. 
Morality, so far as it is consistent, is an effort on man's 
part to lift himself to the heights of spiritual achievement 
by his own unaided effort. As well might the savage 
attempt to lift himself by his own unaided effort to the 
highest civilization; as well might the animal attempt to 
lift its instinct and brute intelligence up to the higher 
intelligence of man; as well might the chemical elements 
in the mineral kingdom attempt to organize themselves and 
burst forth into the fragrance of the lily and the beauty 
of the rose as for man by his unaided effort to attempt to 
lift himself to the divine perfection which Christ has 
enjoined upon us. 

Human culture is a tree lifting its head toward the stars, 
but at last falling back in impotence to the earth. Human 
culture is a mountain lifting its brow high into the heaven, 
but never touching the world above it and always remain- 
ing rooted in the earth. Human culture is the eagle soar- 
ing toward the sun, but with failing wing and drooping 
spirit returning to earth again. Human culture is a 
cloud lifting itself apparently above the earth, beyond the 
tree-tops, beyond the mountains, beyond the region which 
birds can reach, until at last it seems as if it would float 
away to another world, but never escaping the law of 
gravitation and falling back in broken drops upon the earth 
again. Human culture is a ladder reaching up toward 
heaven, but however high it reaches, never resting its top 
against the foundations of the heavenly world. Chris- 
tianity is a ladder flung out from the gate of heaven, its 
top fastened securely to the heavenly battlements, its lower 
rounds touching the earth; and on this ladder, as on the 
ladder of Jacob's early vision, the angels of the Lord are 



68 



THE DEMAND FOR CHBIST 



ascending and descending. Christ brings to our struggling 
souls the power of a higher kingdom and thus becomes the 
Head of a new humanity. "But speaking the truth in 
love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the 
Head, even Christ." 



IV 



CHEIST AND CIVILIZATION 1 

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, 
and is to come. — Rev. 4. 8. 

The text, in a slightly varied form, is found in the intro- 
duction to the book of Eevelation. "John to the seven 
churches which are in Asia : Grace unto you, and peace, 
from him which is, and which was, and which is to come." 
Again, just after the introduction and before the messages 
to the seven churches, John places the text, as if he meant 
it to be the thesis of his book: "I am Alpha and Omega, 
. • . saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which 
is to come, the Almighty." Finally, following the mes- 
sages to the seven churches, John has a vision of heaven. 
He sees the throne of the universe and One sitting upon it ; 
and he hears from those surrounding the throne, sounding 
forth day and night, these words : "Holy, holy, holy, Lord 
God Almighty, which w r as, and is, and is to come." The 
book of Eevelation, therefore, teaches the eternal presence 
of God. All its warnings against conformity to the world, 
all its exhortations to fidelity, all its assurances of final 
victory, arise from the conviction that God is the Alpha 
and the Omega, the beginning and the end of human 
history. 

It must be confessed that the book of Eevelation is the 
crux of commentators. Most writers accept the view set 
forth in Meyer's Commentary, that the book is a prophecy 

baccalaureate Sermon, Ohio Wesleyan University, June, 
1904. 



69 



70 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



of the second coming of Christ. The key to it is to be 
found in the first sentence, "The revelation of Jesus Christ, 
which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things 
which must shortly come to pass." The theme is again 
presented in the closing sentence of the book: "He which 
testifieth these things saith, Surely: I come quickly. 
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." According to this 
view, Eevelation is an amplification of what seems to us 
to be the last clause of John's thesis; it is a prophecy of 
Him who is to come. But there is no grammatical warrant 
for basing the exegesis of the book upon a single clause 
rather than upon the whole sentence which seems to set 
forth John's thesis. Again, the vast majority of German 
commentators hold that John was entirely mistaken in 
his view of the second coming of Christ, and that the 
prophecy never has been fulfilled in the manner in which 
John conceived it. It is a serious matter for commen- 
tators to make a mistake in the interpretation of prophecy, 
and, when the false exegesis is not confirmed by the unfold- 
ing history of the race, to put the blame upon the New 
Testament instead of upon their own mistaken views. 
Hence the customary exegesis of Eevelation does not 
satisfy the Christian. 

Professor Moulton's remarkable lecture before the uni- 
versity on the book of Eevelation was itself a revelation 
to many of us. Ho maintains that the book is simply an 
exposition of the first clause of our thesis, "of the God 
who was," rather than of the God, "who is to come." 
According to Professor Moulton, Eevelation is properly 
the closing book of the Bible. It sums up and confirms all 
the earlier writings. John is steeped to the lips in the 
prophetic and historic literature of the Old Testament. 
Professor Moulton regards Eevelation as one of the great- 



CHRIST AND CIVILIZATION" 71 



est classics in all literature. A classic breathes the spirit 
of and contains allusions to and embraces quotations from 
the great books which preceded it. Homer is built up out 
of the ballad poetry which otherwise had perished. Virgil 
is Theocritus, scarcely veiled in its Italian dress. Dante 
in turn echoes Virgil. So the book of Eevelation sums up 
the great books of the Bible. The river of life recalls 
the river of Genesis. The vision of the Son of man, with 
head as white as wool, recalls the vision of Daniel. The 
golden candlesticks are taken from Isaiah's vision. The 
morning stars which have been world rulers in Job, are, in 
Eevelation, the angels of the seven churches. The mes- 
sages to the churches recall Amos's commission to the 
seven nations. We have Job's darkened sun and blood- 
red moon ; Isaiah's picture of the heavens folding like a 
scroll, the measuring rod of Ezekiel's vision of the temple, 
while the lion of the tribe of Judah, worthy to open the 
seal, is an echo from Jacob's patriarchal prophecy still 
ringing in our ears. Surely, the higher critics, who believe 
that some of the books of the Old Testament are com- 
posed in part of more ancient literature, cannot object to 
Professor Moulton's application of their own method to the 
book of Eevelation. All who read the book carefully will 
recognize the references which Professor Moulton points 
out, and will find, in John's message, a fitting summary 
and conclusion of all the revelations which God vouchsafed 
to the Jewish people. 

But there is no more grammatical warrant for basing 
the exposition of the book upon the first clause of what 
seems to be its thesis than upon the last clause. I agree 
with Professor Moulton that the book is the summary of 
all God's earlier messages, including not only messages 
from the Jews and othei nations, but also from the animal 



72 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



kingdom, for God pictures animals as identified with men 
both in worship and in wickedness. I agree with Meyer's 
Commentary that Revelation is also a picture of the Christ 
who is to come; first, to the individual soul at death, and 
next, to the race as a whole at the end of the ages. But 
some study of the book leads me to the conviction that it 
was written, not only to reveal the God who was, and the 
God who is to come, but also the God who is to-day. John 
emphasizes the presence of God in the churches to which 
he wrote, by departing in the earlier statement of his thesis 
both from its logical and chronological order. He speaks 
of the God "who is, and who was, and who is to come" 
I would not, therefore, base the interpretation of Revela- 
tion upon the last clause, or upon the first clause, or upon 
the central clause, of the thesis, but upon all three of the 
clauses combined. The entire thesis teaches the eternal 
presence of God in his universe. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord 
God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." This 
is not only the key to the last book in the Bible, but to the 
Bible as a whole, and, indeed, to all the revelations which 
God has ever given to the human race. I, therefore, catch 
from the lips of John my final message for you to-day: 
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, 
and is to come." 

A little study will show us the need of recognizing God's 
presence in the past, in the present, and in the future. 

L God's Presence in the Past 

The need of cultivating our conviction of God's presence 
in the past arises from the corruption of human nature. 
If evolution meant only the constant development of the 
race, every variation from the existing standard would 
constitute one more step of progress. But as a matter of 



CHEIST AND CIVILIZATION 



73 



fact, nine tenths of the variations of children from the 
standards set for them by their parents are steps in degen- 
eration rather than in progress. Walter Bagehot, in 
Physics and Politics, furnishes from the point of view of 
evolution an explanation of the power of custom, whose 
tyranny so many of us resent. According to Bagehot, the 
power of custom, the value of imitation, rather than 
initiative, is due to the fact that most of the variations in 
early times from ancestral habits were in the direction of 
degeneration. Hence the animals and the men varying 
most rapidly and radically from the customs which experi- 
ence had established, perished in the struggle for existence, 
and left surviving the animals and the races which con- 
formed to established customs. This accounts for the 
survival of conservatives, and for the force of established 
habits and customs among animals and men. It is not 
possible for any civilization to advance or even survive 
which is not rooted in the past. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord 
God Almighty, which was." 

It is a commonplace in economic history that the chil- 
dren spend what the fathers accumulate. Each family 
represented in this great audience this morning would be 
rich in this world's goods, if its ancestors for the last 
dozen generations had preserved what was inherited by 
them and transmitted it unimpaired to posterity. What 
all of us recognize to be true of so material a thing as 
wealth, is still more true of intellectual and moral and 
spiritual riches. The saddest fact in the history of our 
race is the fact of backsliding, the loss of gains which have 
been toilsomely won. The most striking illustration in 
European history of the declension of nations and even of 
the Church of God, is found in the Dark Ages. The Chris- 
tians of the early centuries, along with their experience of 



74 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



the presence of God in their hearts and lives, the language 
and culture of Greece, the government and civilization of 
Rome, and above all, God's revelation in the Old and New 
Testaments. But through the corruption which gradually 
crept into the church on her triumph over the empire, 
through the conformity of her members to the paganism 
which still survived in Greece and Italy, and above all, 
through their adoption of the customs of the barbarian 
hordes which bore down upon southern Europe from the 
north and east, the Christians surrendered little by little, 
one after another, their priceless blessings, until Greek 
civilization and art, and Roman government and law, and 
the presence and power of the Spirit, and at last the Word 
of God itself, all were lost; and for six hundred years our 
ancestors walked the earth in almost heathen darkness. 
Here is an illustration of national and international back- 
sliding, of race retrogression, of the children of God 
yielding to the worldliness which surrounded them. Only 
an angel can depict the loss which came to civilization, the 
delay to the kingdom of heaven on earth, by this declension 
of the early church. It is at least striking that the Greek 
Catholic Church never has recovered the classics, and that 
neither the Greek nor the Roman Catholic Church ever has 
recovered the Bible for the common people since this 
period of apostasy. 

But we need not spend our time in reproaching the 
church for sins committed a thousand years ago. If we 
deal honestly with ourselves, many of us will be forced to 
recognize that there have been times in our own lives when 
we have stood upon a higher moral and spiritual plane than 
we occupy to-day. Even those of you who are upon a 
higher spiritual plane than you ever held before will be 
the first to recognize that you might be almost infinitely 



CHEIST AND CIVILIZATION 75 



higher still if you had always been obedient to the light 
which God gave you. Hence the first law of progress is 
reverence for the past, obedience to the laws of God found 
written in his Book, responsiveness to the ideals which you 
have received from your father and your mother. The 
first measure of spiritual greatness is not your power of 
initiative, but your power of receptivity. 

The presence of God in the past forms the basis for the 
conservative in politics, for the priest as over against the 
prophet in religion, for the use of the classics and of 
history and of literature in our college courses. The 
glory of the Ohio Wesleyan University has been her 
loyalty to the ideals of her founders ; and if the time ever 
comes when this university neglects religion, and abandons 
the old-time ideal of consecrated culture, and ceases to 
seek first the kingdom, she will find "Ichabod" written 
upon her halls. 

The theological basis of reverence for the past and 
loyalty to ancestral ideal is the Fatherhood of God. How 
dare the young upstart believe that God speaks to him 
to-day after denying that God ever spoke to his fathers ! 
Only as we recognize that God is the eternal Father of the 
race, that he created the world and revealed his will to our 
ancestors; only as we recognize that God of old time by 
divers persons and in divers manners spake unto our 
fathers, shall we be confident that he is still speaking 
through the Holy Spirit unto us to-day. Hence John 
testifies that if any man prove disloyal to past revelation, 
and take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, 
God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and 
out of the holy city. Jesus states the ground of reverence 
in its positive form when he declares that one jot or tittle 
shall in no wise pass from the law until all of it be fulfilled. 



76 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, 
and is to come." 

IL God's Presence in the Universe To-day 

The past is efficient, but not sufficient. Obedience to 
long-established institutions never must overslaugh the 
power of initiative in God's children. The conservative 
may become the miser of civilization, hoarding up tradi- 
tions in his memory and worshiping existing institutions 
as if they were an end in themselves, instead of a means 
for making men more Christly. Our creeds and our 
Bibles are given to us to be used, and not to be worshiped. 

The ground for the rooting of civilization in the present 
is the scientific doctrine that life depends upon adaptation 
to environment: Walter Bagehot, whom we just quoted to 
prove that civilization survives only as it is responsive to 
inheritance, nevertheless maintains that survival and 
progress depend also upon responsiveness to one's environ- 
ment. The extinct species of animals and of the dead 
races perished because they lacked the power of adaptation 
to their surroundings. The animals which can burrow in 
the ground or grow a coat of fur or fly to a warmer clime, 
when the cold comes on, survive, while insects which have 
no such power of adaptation to their surroundings perish 
with the summer. Professor Weismann holds that under 
evolution and through the survival of the fittest, the 
original method of multiplication by fissure, with its in- 
definite prolongation of the life of each individual, has 
been supplanted by the later method of sex reproduction, 
followed by the death of parents. Professor Weismann 
maintains that the appearance of death in the world is a 
necessity for the progress of life, on the ground that the 
species, in which parents die as soon as they cease to 



CHRIST AND CIVILIZATION 



77 



minister to the common good, gains rapidly over the species 
in which parents survive long after they have lost the 
power of adapting themselves to their environment. Here 
at least is a striking argument, from the point of view 
of the latest science, for the cultivation of the power of 
initiative in the present, along with our reverence for the 
past 

As we find in the Dark Ages a striking illustration of 
the decay of a civilization which lost its hold upon the 
past, and became entirely absorbed in its environment, so 
we find in China to-day a striking illustration of the weak- 
ness of a people who utterly have failed to master the 
principles of a modern civilization through their undue 
reverence for the past. A vast empire lies at the mercy of 
modern nations because China's toiling millions are in the 
grasp of a dead man's hand. Confucianism consists of 
reverence for the established order. China is the paradise 
of conservatism. Her prophets are all priests ; her civiliza- 
tion faces backward. The actual rulers are the grand- 
parents, and they rule, not according to the slight power 
of initiative still left in them, but according to traditions 
handed down from departed ancestors. Hence, a vast 
population, embracing one fourth of the human race, lies 
at the mercy of vastly smaller and less scrupulous nations, 
because Chinese civilization is rooted in the past alone. 
What more striking illustration of the necessity of adapta- 
tion to our environment as well as of reverence for our 
inheritance? "I am the Alpha and Omega, . . . saith 
the Lord, which is." 

Nor can a civilization survive which is rooted in the 
future alone any more than one which is rooted in the past 
alone. Prance, at the time of her great revolution, neg- 
lected both her traditions and her existing institutions, and 



78 



THE DEMAND FOE CHBIST 



attempted to organize society on the basis of abstract ideal- 
ism. Just as China is in danger of dissolution, because 
she represents a civilization rooted in the past, so the 
French Kevolution, built upon the clouds, soon sank to 
the ambitious and selfish empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

While Ohio Wesleyan University is true to her past 
ideals she must not fail in her present duties. The ideal 
college curriculum is not composed of the classics and of 
literature and of history alone, nor of the practical and 
applied sciences and art alone. It is a curriculum which 
affords its students an opportunity to master the wisdom 
of the past, and then to adapt its teachings to the condi- 
tions and problems of the present. If, therefore, the 
university fails to become practical, if her students become 
absorbed in history and in literature, or spend their time 
in daydreams of the future, and neglect the problems of 
applied Christianity — the banishment of the saloon, the 
redemption of the slums, the reconciliation of capitalists 
and laborers, and the extension of the gospel to the ends 
of the earth — again she will find "Ichabod" written upon 
her walls. The twentieth century especially must be the 
age of applied Christianity. Just as the great Wesleyan 
revival was a revival of the consciousness of God in the indi- 
vidual spirit, so the revival of the twentieth century will 
consist of a recognition of God's presence in the community 
and in the world. Just as the Wesleyan revival was fol- 
lowed by an immense increase in individual activity, so the 
revival of the twentieth century will be marked by a rapid 
increase of social service. Love manifesting itself by service 
is the divine method of revealing God to those who know 
him not. Practical Christianity, springing out of the recog- 
nition of God's presence in our souls and in the world, will 
furnish to the unconverted a scientific demonstration of the 



CHEIST AND CIVILIZATION 79 



reality of the Christian life. It is always possible for men 
to fall into doubt over definitions. No theologian has ex- 
plained yet the relation of the Spirit to the Father and to 
the Son. But it is impossible for the practical man to deny 
the reality and the goodness of the Spirit, when he sees 
his neighbor prompted by that Spirit to acts of humility 
and of love, which are alien to himself. It is easy for the 
human mind, blinded by sin, to fall into darkness in regard 
to the future life. Doubt is possible so long as we remain 
in the body. But how mightily our faith in the future 
is strengthened when we find our neighbor walking, "not 
after the law of a carnal commandment, but by the power 
of an endless life." 

The theological basis of a civilization, rooted in the 
present, is the immanence of God. This is the chief con- 
tribution of modern civilization and modern science to the 
Christian life. God did not construct the universe, like 
a huge machine, and set it going and then leave it to run 
down by itself. He is not hid away in some sky-parlor of 
the universe, deaf to the cries and indifferent to the woes 
of his children. God is eternally present in his universe. 
He is the supreme environment of the human spirit, and 
the prime condition of man's progress, or even of his 
survival, is the surrender of his will and conformity to the 
will of him, "In whom we live and move and have our 
being." 

In order that Christ might be eternally and universally 
present, it was expedient for us that he lay aside the 
imprisoning walls of the material body and become a free 
and omnipotent Spirit. The dispensation of the Spirit is 
the manifestation of God in the world to-day. This is the 
meaning of Pentecost. "I am Alpha and Omega, . . . 
saith the Lord, which is." 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



The biblical basis for God's presence in the world to-day 
is found in the words, and still more in the life, of Jesus. 
He never lost the consciousness of the Father's presence. 
For a single moment on the cross it seemed to Christ as 
if the light of his eyes and the strength of his spirit were 
melting away. But the loss was only momentary, for 
immediately the Father revealed himself to his Son, and 
Christ said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," 
and died as peacefully as a child falls to sleep on its 
mother's bosom. So long as the twenty-fifth chapter of 
Matthew stands as Christ's own picture of the final Judg- 
ment, so long will a religion, ministering to present needs, 
and sustained by the continued outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit, find its divine warrant. However clear the revela- 
tion of God in the past, however inspiring the visions 
which he vouchsafes to us of the future, both at best 
are only the conditions of present living. The past and 
the future are beyond our reach. Here and now is our 
struggle. Here and now our eternal destiny is settled. 
Hence we hear the words of John, ringing above the 
turmoil of the contest : "Be thou faithful unto death, and I 
will give thee a crown of life." Hence we hear through 
the clouds, which shut out the vision, the trumpet tones of 
Christ, thrilling us with the inspiring message, "I am he 
that was dead, and am alive, and behold I live forever- 
more." "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, 
which was, and which is, and which is to come." 

IIL Chbist's Second Coming in Glorious Majesty 

We have found God, the Father, in the past, and God, 
the Spirit, in the present. Let us now consider God the 
Son, who is to come. Any civilization which is to be 
permanent must be rooted in the past, teach men to be 



CHRIST AND CIVILIZATION 81 



loyal to their inheritance, and obedient to the light already 
given. Any civilization which is to last must adapt itself 
to its environment, teach men to be practical and to meet 
present duties in the spirit of loving service. But the 
third and strongest root of civilization is hope. If ma- 
terialism were true, and man were simply a living mechan- 
ism, he would be merely a product of the past. If physi- 
ological psychology were true, and man were only an 
animal, he would be, as Buckle regarded him, the joint 
product of inheritance and of environment. 

But because man was created in the image of God, and 
is a free spirit, the motives which shape his destiny are 
in the future. Among free beings the only final causes are 
ideals. This is not only the accepted teaching of our 
Arminian theologians but the latest message from such 
philosophers as Eoyce of Harvard, Howison of California, 
and Wundt of Germany. Thus the fact that the highest 
civilization must be rooted in hope grows out of the con- 
stitution of man. Speaking reverently, the God of the 
past and the God of the present are efficient but not 
sufficient. 

The preachers of applied Christianity must remember 
that the church, in adapting herself to her environment, is 
exposed to the same danger which produced the declension 
of the Dark Ages. The sin against which the Bible most 
constantly warns Christians is worldliness ; and worldliness 
is nothing less than conformity to a sinful environment. 
It is at least significant that while the sanctification of 
secular life unquestionably is the goal of church history, 
nevertheless no broad church movement has thus far 
succeeded. The practical idealism of Kingsley and 
Maurice ended in free reading rooms and workingmen's 
smoking parlors, and in a mild form of socialism in 



82 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



politics. American university settlements are conceived 
out of love for the poor, but they are falling short of their 
highest service, because they have lost sight of man's 
possibilities as a child of God. They appeal to prudence, 
strike the low level of material prosperity, and are of the 
earth, earthy, not the new Jerusalem let down by God out 
of heaven. So modern socialism in Europe and America, 
while deriving its impulse from the Sermon on the Mount, 
nevertheless scoffs at the hope of man's future coronation 
as the device of priests to keep him in present bondage, 
and clamors for present, practical, material rewards. This 
socialism already has missed the goal which Christ set for 
the race. Instead of leading its followers up the Mount of 
Transfiguration to the heaven of Godlike character it is 
drowning them in the slough of utilitarianism. Utili- 
tarianism, as Benjamin Kidd has shown, is dead as a 
philosophy and even as a system of economics, just because 
it is rooted in the present only. Its motto is the greatest 
happiness of the greatest number. But if utilitarians 
would only measure happiness by its quality of lasting 
satisfaction, they would find the highest happiness arising 
from duty well performed, and the greatest number to 
consist, not of the present fleeting generation, but of the 
constantly increasing rising generations. Were the utili- 
tarians, therefore, to aim at the highest happiness of the 
greatest number, their eyes would be on the future, and 
utilitarianism would be transformed into idealism. But 
unfortunately the utilitarians seek merely the largest bulk 
of physical comfort for the masses now living. Thus 
utilitarianism, instead of rising to idealism, sinks to ma- 
terialism, and teaches its followers to toil and struggle 
after the law of a carnal commandment, and not by the 
power of an endless life. And so the activities of Chris- 



CHEIST AND CIVILIZATION 



83 



tians, under the new watchword of applied Christianity, 
may easily run to church buildings, to college endowments, 
to external organizations and institutional enterprises, and 
to social reforms. The supreme end of Christianity is 
Christlike character, and such character will be developed 
only as we maintain our fellowship with the God who was, 
and who is, and who is to come. 

The grourd of a civilization rooted in the future is 
faith. In a remarkable volume on Western Civilization, 
Benjamin Kidd attributes the growing ascendancy of the 
English-speaking races to what he calls the principle of 
projected efficiency. He holds that on the reaction from 
the Dark Ages the Eoman Catholic Church and the aristo- 
cratic governments of Europe became the conservators of 
the established order, and that European civilization was 
rooted in the past. Utilitarianism was an attempt upon the 
part of the opponents of the church to root civilization in 
the present. Mr. Kidd, however, holds that since the Eef or- 
mation, and especially since the discovery and rapid growth 
of America, the civilization of the Anglo-Saxon peoples 
has been rooted, not so much in the past or in the present, 
as in the future. The reason why the Indians of North 
America and the Indians of Asia do not match Western 
progress is because they do not accept Western ideals. 
When the young New Englander urged the ximerican 
Indian to secure an education, he answered, "What for?" 
When the bustling Westerner urges the Oriental to quicken 
his pace, he answers, "Why should I hasten?" When the 
American teacher sets before the Filipino the goal of 
wealth, his more loquacious answer is: "All that wealth 
can buy is what one eats and drinks and wears. I have 
all I need of these now, while I am able to enjoy them. 
Why should I deny myself present enjoyment for the sake 



84 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



of some possible enjoyment which some possible wealth 
may bring to me in some possible future, all of which I 
may never realize?" In a word, the barbarian and the 
man of the tropics are lazy, and each dreads responsibility. 
His vice is a passion for tobacco and opium, or sedative 
drugs. He accepts with complacency the Nirvana, of ever- 
lasting sleep, presented to him in Buddhism. Upon the 
contrary, the American is ever working, but never living. 
He is active in the present, but he intends to live in the 
future. He bears present toil for future wealth, for 
future honors. The politician dreams that he will reach 
the Presidency, or at the latest, that his son will be called 
to the White House. The children study for the future. 
The final causes of Western civilization are our ideals. 
That is what Mr. Kidd calls the principle of projected 
efficiency. Even the characteristic Western vice is not a 
passion for opium, which is a sedative, but for whisky, 
which is a stimulant; and the Scotchman and the Irish- 
man even fight in their drunkenness. 

The biblical warrant for a civilization grounded in the 
future is its emphasis on faith. Peter rests his teaching 
upon the authority of the Old Testament, James is the 
apostle of applied Christianity, but Paul completes the 
teaching of Peter and James by his emphasis of faith. 
Jesus contemplates for himself the glory which he had with 
his Father before the world was. He sets before his dis- 
ciples the task of the conquest of the world, and the 
infinite joy of eternal glory at his right hand. So you and 
I have a right to aim at personal perfection. We were 
made in the image of God. "Homo Capax dei/' is the 
profound motto of Augustine. The soul was made in the 
image of God, and can rest only in him. The best service 
to the world is the perfection of your nature. The church 



CHEIST AND CIVILIZATION 85 



rests upon faith because Christianity in its essence is 
idealism. It is a struggle for an ideal to which the race 
has not yet attained. Among morally free beings the 
only final causes are ideals. These are the forces which 
draw us toward our goals. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God 
Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." 

This inspired scripture, which we have found to be the 
key to the book of Kevelation, and in some measure to the 
Bible as a whole, throws light on the history of the race. 
It shows how the people of the Dark Ages failed through 
the neglect of the God who was, how the Chinese, and 
the French, at the time of the ."Revolution, failed by neg- 
lecting the God who is, and how the red men perished and 
the Buddhists are doomed because they refused to follow 
the ideals of the God who is to be. The text explains the 
three types of civilization which have ever claimed the 
allegiance of the race. It reconciles the conflict between 
the priest and the prophet, between the conservative and 
the radical, between the toiler and the inventor. 

"All are needed by each one, 
Nothing is good or fair alone." 

The text may help to free China from the grasp of a 
dead man's hands, to lift the United States out of absorp- 
tion in the purely practical in politics and religion, and to 
deliver the South American republics from an attempt to 
build civilization upon the clouds. 

This truth ought to render each one of us a personal 
service. Just as God cannot be broken up into three 
Gods, a Father in the past, a Spirit in the present, and a 
Son who is to be the head of the New Humanity, so the 
human spirit at its best maintains its unity and cannot 
be broken into fragments. You cannot be a good con- 



86 



THE DEMAND FOB CHRIST 



servator of the faith delivered to the saints — indeed, you 
will discredit that faith — unless you are also an upholder 
of present righteousness. But you cannot be a courageous 
worker in the present struggle for Prohibition or for 
missions, unless you catch the inspiring vision of the 
future triumph. In exactly the same way, the Saint 
James of the twentieth century must also be a conservative 
and a prophet, and the prophetic soul will find himself a 
false prophet if he neglects the Bible, and an impracticable 
dreamer unless he embodies his vision in daily righteous- 
ness. Whatever may be the fate of other states or institu- 
tions, may this university ever be the home of classical 
culture, and the cradle of practical reforms, but, above all, 
may she be the sky parlor of God's prophets who shall 
charm humanity to its goal by the glowing picture of the 
New Jerusalem, let down by God out of heaven. 

A glance, in conclusion, at the teaching of Revelation as 
to the second coming of Christ will convince us that John 
was not mistaken. That coming was both individual and 
general. Instead, therefore, of regarding the coming of 
Jesus as a sudden overturning of the existing order by 
the appearance of the Son of man in the clouds, instead of 
pointing out the day upon which the Saviour may be 
expected, and finding ourselves repeatedly mistaken, like 
the Second Adventists, or instead of saying, with the 
rationalistic commentators, "The word of the Lord fail- 
eth," why should we not regard this prophecy as primarily 
individual? Surely, if you ever meet in the New Jerusa- 
lem those to whom John wrote, and say to them, "The 
promise of the Lord failed/' each will look surprised and 
answer: "It failed not in my case. He came for me." 
faithful Christian, some night in the first watch, or in 
the second watch, you shall know the meaning of that 



CHKIST AND CIVILIZATION 



87 



text, "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, 
to give every man according as his work shall be." 
faithless steward of the manifold riches of God, some dawn 
for you will melt into the eternal morning and you shall 
know the meaning of these words, "In such an hour as ye 
think not, the Son of man cometh." Surely, there is no 
complaint in heaven over the failure of the second coming 
of Christ. He does not leave us to find the way alone, but 
comes for each one of us to guide us to our home. 

But the promised overthrow of the kingdom of Satan 
and the glowing picture of the new heavens and the new 
earth do not permit us to regard the second coming of 
Christ as simply the visit of the Saviour to the individual 
soul at its hour of death. This larger coming of Christ is 
taking place just as rapidly as God can bring it about. A 
mechanical second coming of Christ could take place any 
morning. God could rend the heavens and come down 
with such infinite manifestations of power as would 
prostrate every creature upon the earth before his glorious 
majesty. But that would be an abandonment of the 
method which God has followed ever since the creation 
of free beings. Such an appearance would overslough our 
freedom and produce a constrained confession springing out 
of fear. Such worship could never be a fulfillment of 
the prophecy that "every knee should bow, . . . and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to 
the glory of God the Father." No, the divine vision of the 
kingdom of heaven on earth is being realized just as 
rapidly as men are becoming obedient to the Holy Spirit. 
Are you and I so responding to the ideals which God 
presents to us as to bring in the kingdom in our own 
hearts? Such surrender is sanctification. It is the 
Pentecostal stage for the individual soul. But the 



88 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



Pentecostal stage for the race will come only when all of 
us unite to bring in the kingdom of heaven upon earth. 
The present hard, imperfect realities of life will never 
satisfy the soul save as they are broken images of the 
ideal life which yet is to become real. The earth was once 
an Eden, and it shall be a paradise again. You cannot 
escape the cry of the world's sorrow. The superstitions, 
the toils, the sacrifices, and the cries to the God they do 
not know, of eight hundred million brothers and sisters 
haunt us like a nightmare. What right have you and I 
to be happy and to live at ease until they too become par- 
takers of the divine inheritance? It is not only because 
our God is the God of the past, giving revelations to our 
ancestors which guided them along the dark pathways of 
life ; it is not only because our God is a God of the present, 
vouchsafing us his guidance and his power for the strenu- 
ous conflicts of our daily lives; it is also because our God 
is the God of the future, inspiring in us the confident 
expectation of the evangelization of the race and the com- 
ing of the kingdom of heaven upon earth, that Christianity 
becomes the final religion. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God 
Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." 

Members of the Class of 190 J^: You have recited your 
last lesson. You have passed the final test at college. 
We have spoken our last message to you. Henceforth you 
walk alone as far as teachers are concerned. Some of 
you will return to the parental roof. But your tarrying 
will be brief. You will soon walk alone so far as human 
help is concerned. You pray alone. You decide the great 
crises of your lives alone. You die alone, so far as human 
help avails. Your future is in the dark. Your tasks are 
not yet clearly revealed. You only know that they will 
be heavy. Surely, I can speak with some sympathy to-day. 



CHRIST AND CIVILIZATION 



89 



I too go out from the old home which has sheltered us all. 
I too say farewell to the good mother who has been better 
to me even than she has been to any of you. If your task 
is heavy, mine is appalling. I confront the greatest 
heathen empire on earth. We shall each be more lonely 
than we can realize to-day. We shall often be discouraged 
by burdens beyond our strength. 

But our help is not far to seek. It is in the eternal 
presence of God. None of us needs to walk alone or to 
be comfortless. Christ has offered to go with us even unto 
the end. I beg of you not to start out on the desolate 
pathway of life without him. "If thy presence come not 
with me, send me not hence." But if we really receive our 
tasks from God's hand to-day, then, whether we go or 
whether we stay, we shall not fail of his presence. We 
shall catch his illimitable hope. We shall see light in his 
light, and we shall go marching to the eternal home, 
already hearing the music of the evening bells, calling us 
home to the supper with the Lord. After the first great 
feast we shall be gathered around the eternal hearth- 
stone. God grant that you may each be present. Some 
of us will arrive home before the rest of you. But you will 
find those of us who reach there first waiting at the gate 
to bid the rest of you welcome. Again, I say, may each 
of us be present. In the meantime, may we cultivate the 
presence of Him who was, and who is, and who is to come. 



V 



CHKISTIAN UNITY 1 
That they may all be one. — John 17. 21. 

The context shows the intensity of Christ's desire for 
the unity of his followers. The 13th to 17th chapters of 
John reveal the intimate fellowship of Christ with his 
disciples. But in the 17th chapter Christ's desire becomes 
so intense that he rises instinctively from conversation with 
his disciples to communion with his Father; and the 
burden of his prayer is the unity of believers. The four- 
fold cry, "That they may be one/' and the conviction twice 
expressed that their union with each other and with him 
will convince the world that God has sent him, show at once 
the Master's estimate of the importance of Christian unity 
and his intense desire for it. 

L The Grounds of This Desire 

A little reflection reveals the grounds of this desire. 
First, the cost of our ecclesiastical divisions ought to lead 
us to some plan of cooperation. In almost every village in 
our land of from one to three thousand people, from three 
to six churches are found — each costing from $1,500 to 
$6,000 or $8,000. (We know one village of 2,500 people 
with thirteen churches.) Were the groups of Christians 
in each village united in the purpose to render the largest 
service to the community, the nation, and the world, such 
wasteful rivalries could not endure. Were the strongest 

1 Sermon before the General Conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, Saratoga Springs, N. Y., May 14, 1916. 

90 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 



91 



corporation on earth to fall into such divisions as would 
lead to the building of six to eight rival headquarters in 
every village in the land, and the placing of four or five 
agents in that town to compete for the common business, 
that corporation would face bankruptcy within a year. 
Were the money which we now use in our sectarian 
struggles spent in accordance with the spirit of Christ's 
prayer, we could maintain a church in every village and 
in every country region of our land, could care for each 
neglected spot and each foreign race in our cities, and 
could speedily enter upon plans to carry the gospel to every 
human being upon the globe. 

At the very time when we are pursuing our sectarian 
courses we are proclaiming our ecclesiastical liberality. 
Few Protestant denominations are bigoted enough to claim 
that the rest of us so fail to follow Christ as to compel 
them to deny us fellowship. Most of us are humble 
enough to reckon our fellow Christians as equal to our- 
selves. But after boasting of our liberality we refuse to 
enter into practical cooperation, and build altar over 
against altar in every village in our land. What is this 
but the exhibition of the same ecclesiastical bigotry which 
sacerdotalists practice? Protestantism has gone too far 
not to go further. In recognizing the Christian character 
of our sister churches and then failing to unite with them 
for the salvation of the community, of the nation, and of 
the world, we are left without even a rag to hide our naked 
ecclesiastical selfishness. 

We cannot remain blind to the world-wide movement 
toward the unification of all related interests. With 
scholarship recognizing no national boundaries and science 
becoming one around the globe; with business combining 
into trusts and forming international combinations; with 



92 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



laborers entering wisely into unions ; with nations entering 
into alliances, and no solution of world conflicts in sight 
save an international court, it is simply incredible that the 
church, called to lead and inspire the nations, should prove 
the laggard in civilization ; and it is a thousand pities that 
our own church fifty years after the war is over should 
still leave her own breach unclosed. God help us to re- 
move that anachronism during the next few j T ears. 

With serious neglect at home of our colored people, of 
our immigrants and our city slums, with children un- 
trained in industries and with economic inequalities, with 
intemperance and social vice still rooted in our land, and 
with a thousand million souls in the world for whom Christ 
tasted death still uninformed of God, it is incredible that 
our Christian forces should still paralyze their energies by 
petty divisions in every village in the land. We prophesy 
that within the next few years groups of Christians will 
begin uniting their forces into one Protestant Church, not 
to save money for themselves, but to send forth a repre- 
sentative to help capture the world for Christ. If we 
follow the practice of double enrollment permitted by 
union churches in the seaports of the Eastern world, join- 
ing a union church and at the same time retaining our 
membership in the mother church, no denomination need 
lose a member through this cooperation. The cost of our 
division pleads for a united Christendom. 

Second. But a far graver evil grows out of our divisions. 
The late William R. Huntington of the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church wrote: "The two chief concerns of the twen- 
tieth century are international arbitration and the unify- 
ing of the Christian Church. It was a unified church 
which in our mother land created out of the heptarchy a 
realm ; and it may be the achievement of a united church 



CHBISTIAN UNITY 



93 



to transform the vast welter of competing forces we call 
the world political into a true cosmos, a united system of 
states which shall reproduce on a far larger scale the 
ancient Christendom." Eecent events add great force to 
Bishop Huntington's suggestion. It is not true to say- 
that the rivalries of the Christian churches are the cause of 
the European war. But it is true that the Christian forces 
of Europe have through ecclesiastical divisions failed so to 
restrain the political and economic rivalries of Europe as 
to prevent the European war. An incalculable loss is 
falling upon the world which might have been prevented 
by a united Christendom. 

Third. Our separations from each other and from God 
have led to spiritual weakness, and we have failed to con- 
vince the world that God was in Christ and that he still 
abides in us. The whole prayer shows that that which 
Christ covets for us goes far deeper than mere external 
uniformity. It is a real, spiritual union of believers with 
each other through their common fellowship with God. 
Wesley made two great contributions to modern Christen- 
dom : One, the doctrine of Christian experience correspond- 
ing to Bacon's doctrine of scientific experiment. As 
Bacon taught that we learn what is true of the material 
world, not by a priori speculations, but by experiments, so 
Wesley taught that we may know the Christian life, not by 
theological discussions, but by the witness of the Spirit 
following our obedience to God's commands. Wesley thus 
puts Christianity upon an experimental basis, and in some 
measure in line with modern science; but this is possible 
only through the conscious union of the soul with Christ. 
Wesley's second contribution to Christendom is his re- 
covery for the modern church of the ancient doctrine of 
sanctification. If we adopt entire obedience to God as our 



94 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



working plan of life, to be realized here and now by the 
aid of the Holy Spirit, and maintain uninterrupted fellow- 
ship with him, even the world soon will recognize super- 
natural power flowing down from and through the church. 
Such a union with God and with each other as would long 
ago have convinced the world that God is in his church, 
such an influence over the conscience of Europe by the 
united spiritual forces of Christendom as would have 
prevented the World War, and such a union of the 
Christian forces in our towns and villages as would enable 
us to double the laborers for the spiritual conquest of the 
world — these are some of the facts which help us to under- 
stand Christ's desire for Christian unity. 

II. The Cause of Our Divisions 

The root cause of ecclesiastical divisions is ambition. If 
even Jesus wrestled with this passion, shall we either as 
individuals or as churches hope to escape the struggle? 
On the contrary, may we not expect to find ambition strong 
in proportion to our strength as individuals or as churches ? 
Religious and political ambitions are the keys to the 
Maccabean wars, to the long struggle between the Roman 
Catholic Church and civil governments around the globe. 
Political authorities have tried to control religion because 
they recognize, in the language of Professor Seeley, 
"religion as the great state-building principle." Because 
religion brings tremendous political power every Roman 
sovereign claimed to be the Pontifex Maximus; and every 
Chinese emperor usurped the place of Christ and claimed 
to be the Son of Heaven, that is, of God. On the other 
side, because civil government is so powerful an instrument 
of human control, Judaism repeatedly in her history, 
Taoism and Buddhism in China, and the Roman Catholic 



CHEISTIAN UNITY 



95 



Church have made, not the emperor, but the high priest or 
pope, the supreme power on earth. 

While the hope of the church for political domination 
is doomed, ecclesiastical ambition is not dead. If any- 
church can become the vicegerent of God, or even the 
favorite channel of the divine grace, it will exercise 
supreme influence in history, and may look forward to the 
control of the human race for time and for eternity. If 
any one, therefore, dreams that ecclesiastical ambition is 
dead, he has small knowledge of history and no insight inta 
human nature. Ecclesiastical ambition is all the more 
dangerous, because it hides the naked hideousness of per- 
sonal and worldly ambition behind its mask of loyalty to 
God and devotion to his church. 

At this point Methodism is not beyond danger. Our 
boasting rendering us obnoxious to other churches; our 
ecclesiastical ambitions blinding our eyes to our own 
selfishness, our worldliness and our parochialism — spend- 
ing for ourselves while forgetting the dying races — raise 
the question in all prophetic souls as to whether we have 
not reached the high-water mark in our history, and are 
henceforth to ride on a receding tide. God forbid. O 
that among our toiling millions there may be generous 
service, much secret prayer, widespread humility, and 
unconsciousness of self. that in the coming elections, 
in all our legislation, and in all our service Methodism 
would fling away ambition and lose sight of self, and seek 
only to spend and be spent for others. Who ever heard or 
read of a Christian church dying through over service and 
self -f orgetf ulness ? If we served even unto death, we 
should hear God sending forth the decree, "Wherefore I 
have highly exalted her and given her a seat at my right 
hand/' 



96 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



III. Cure of Our Divisions 

We have thus far considered briefly, first, Christ's desire 
for the unity of believers, and some grounds for that 
desire, and, second, the root cause of our divisions. Let us 
now, in the third division, consider somewhat more fully 

the remedies. 

The first principle essential to spiritual fellowship and 
coworking is the recognition of the inherent equality of us 
all before God. This is the conviction which underlies all 
struggles for religious and political freedom; it is the 
fundamental principle of Protestantism, of democracy, and 
industrialism ; and it has so fully survived in the history of 
all nations and races as to demonstrate its divine origin. 

The aristocratic element, which exists in all races and 
invades all religions, denies this inherent equality of men. 
Caste is the basis of Hinduism; and Buddhism was the 
democratic protest. Judaism fell by exalting itself to the 
headship, not by service but by divine election. Caste 
invaded Christendom and attempted boldly to root itself 
in the New Testament through a false interpretation of the 
power of the keys. The power of the keys rested upon 
the Spirit of God in Peter which inspired his confession. 
Jesus said: "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
thee, but my Father which is in heaven." This power was 
retained by Peter only so long as he retained the Holy 
Spirit Christ follows Peter's confession of his Messiah- 
ship by an unfolding of the Messiah's sufferings and death 
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Peter, perhaps 
unduly exalted by the power conferred upon him, and full 
of love and tenderness for Jesus, at once puts forth his new 
power to prevent the carrying out of Christ's program. 
He took Jesus and began to rebuke him, saying: "Be it 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 



97 



far from thee, Lord : this shall not be." But the power of 
the keys failed utterly on Peter's exercise of it. What was 
the cause of the failure ? The fact that Peter had, almost 
unconsciously, yielded to temptation and turned God out 
of his heart for Satan. So Jesus cries to this impotent 
apostle, "Get thee behind me, Satan." The promise sprang 
from the indwelling of the Father; the power disappeared 
with the disappearance of God from his heart. The same 
exegesis is forced upon us in Matt. 18. 18, where Christ 
confers the identical power of binding and loosing — not 
upon Peter alone, but upon the whole church. But Christ 
immediately follows and interprets the promise by adding : 
"If two of you shall agree upon earth as touching anything 
that they shall ask, it shall be done for them, ... for 
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there 
am I in the midst of them." Here Christ clearly shows 
that the power of the keys is the power of prayer, and the 
power of prayer is the power of his presence in the hearts 
of believers. John 20, 23, where the same power is again 
offered to the church, puts this interpretation beyond 
dispute. Jesus after his resurrection meets the body of 
the disciples in the upper room. He breathes upon them 
and says: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins 
ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever 
sins ye retain, they are retained." The promise of the 
power to forgive rests upon the reception of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Indeed, so clear and consistent is the teaching of the 
New Testament that all power, including our talents, is 
conferred upon us by God for special service, and that 
essentially we are all created equal before him, that Paul 
sweeps away all racial and legal and sex distinctions in 
his statement: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is 



98 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for 
ye are all one in Christ Jesus." 

Hence the advocates of caste now attempt to reenforce 
the teachings of the New Testament by the hard, cold 
facts of science. "We must admit," they say, "that God 
both in nature and in revelation has placed children under 
the power of parents, making their economic condition, 
their education, and in some measure their spiritual life 
dependent upon fathers and mothers who often are poor 
and ignorant and vile. We must further admit," they say, 
that "men come into this world endowed by God with 
unequal talents, and that unequal talents spell unequal 
opportunities for time and eternity." Yes, for time, but 
not for eternity. There is an election in the Bible. But 
search the Book from cover to cover and you will find that 
it is an election to service. Abraham was called not simply 
or chiefly that he and his seed might be blessed, but "in 
thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." 

If God ever had bestowed any throne upon any being by 
virtue of his superior nature or his peculiar relation to 
himself, his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, would have 
inherited that throne. But even Christ came to the throne 
by no divine privilege. Listen to Paul's inspired state- 
ment as to how Christ reached his coronation : "Let this 
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, 
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be 
equal with God : but made himself of no reputation, and 
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the 
likeness of men : and being found in fashion as a man he 
humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death. . . . 
Wherefore"— not because of his birth or his nature, but 
because of his choices and his sufferings— "also hath God 
highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 



99 



every name." Here is the divine basis, and the only 
divine basis, of authority. The authority of parents 
springs from and rests upon their service of their children. 
Even the state recognizes this principle, and where parents 
refuse to support their children, deprives them of the 
control of these children. Different talents are indeed be- 
stowed by God. But the men of superior talents are 
ordained to be of harder service; and any devotion of 
these talents to personal advancement is a contradiction 
of the divine plan. Besides, the final and eternal rank 
depends not upon our talents, but upon our fidelity in 
their use. It was because of her entire devotion that the 
widow*s mite in our Saviour's sight outweighed all the 
gold and silver in the treasury. You and I indeed cannot 
invade Europe with our faith, like a Paul, inaugurate a 
Reformation as Luther did, or found a church, like Wesley, 
but we can give our single talent to God with a consecra- 
tion as complete and a fidelity as perfect as these men of 
mighty faith. And if we do this, wherever we stand in 
the sight of men, we may at last stand shoulder to shoulder 
with Luther and Wesley before the throne of God. 

A second principle upon which Christian cooperation 
depends is the law of love manifested by service. God 
deems this law of so much importance that he has brought 
us into the world, not by the process of direct creation, but 
through families, because in the family parents instinc- 
tively love and serve their children, and children parents. 
Millions of fathers and mothers are laying down their lives 
upon the family altar, thus following, at a distance and 
instinctively perhaps but no less really, in the footsteps of 
him who trod the heights of Calvary. The family is a 
divine institution whereby God calls us out of pure indi- 
vidualism into love manifested by service, at least of the 



100 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



clan. "For this cause shall a man leave his father and 
mother, and shall cleave to his wife : and they twain shall 
become one flesh." 

But beyond the family is the nation; and the Bible 
teaches us that the nation also is a divine institution 
whereby God calls us out of the narrow love of family into 
the broader love of our particular race. "The powers that 
be are ordained of God." Millions of brave men in all gen- 
erations, and never more than now, have abandoned ease 
and pleasure, have even been drawn from the service of 
their families, and have laid down their lives upon the altar 
of the nation. These too, as Bishop Nuelsen pointed out 
Friday morning, have been following, at a distance and 
unconsciously perhaps, but no less really, in the footsteps 
of Him who "saved others while himself he could not 
save." 

But above the family and above the state is the church, 
and the church also is a divine institution whereby God 
calls us out of the narrow love of the family and the 
broader love of the nation into the universal lave and 
service of the entire race. What is the church's charter? 
Jesus Christ hath "tasted death for every man." What is 
the church's prayer ? "Our Father" — a recognition of the 
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. What is 
the church's commission ? "Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the gospel to every creature." What does the com- 
mission rest upon ? Upon the New Testament revelation, 
God "hath made of one blood all nations of men. for to 
dwell on all the face of the earth." The danger of national 
or race devotion is that it stops with a partial gospel. 
There is not a line in the New Testament supporting a 
national church. On the contrary, a national church in 
its very name and nature is a sectional church. The 



CHKISTIAN TJ?s T ITY 



101 



moment the Methodist Episcopal Church abandons her 
divine charter, cuts loose from her mission churches, ex- 
cludes the twenty-five nations represented in this General 
Conference and becomes the Methodist Episcopal Church 
of the United States, that moment she signs her doom. 
Thank God that in the late revision of our constitution we 
struck out "of the United States" from our name, and 
became a world-wide church. 

Thoughtful men in the light of the European conflagra- 
tion are beginning to see that Christianity is neither an 
outworn philosophy nor an iridescent dream. Je6us's 
teachings are not only practical, they are the only practical 
solution of our world problems, because they are the only 
teachings which can conserve civilization and save 
humanity. 

Denominationalism in the church is a reversion to na- 
tionalism. It is a repudiation of the church's charter of 
universal brotherhood and service in the interest of a sec- 
tion of the race supposedly elected by God to special 
privileges and authority. What a pity that at this crisis, 
when nations are in a death struggle and the interests of 
humanity are being sacrificed, the church is impotent! 
What a thousand pities that our failure to lead the nations 
to reconciliation is due to the fact that we have failed in 
fellowship among ourselves ! How can we lead the nations 
to a European peace when we ourselves have not reached 
unity in Europe or any other part of the world? How 
can we summon with any divine power races to supreme 
allegiance to Christ while we are rendering supreme al- 
legiance to our denominational organizations in the face of 
our Master's cry for the unity of believers? Surely, in 
the divine order a united Christendom must precede a 
federation of the world. 



102 



THE DEMAND FOB CHKIST 



Third. Under the first main head we have spoken of 
Christ's desire for Christian unity and the grounds of that 
desire. Under the second main head we have portrayed 
the cause of our divisions. Under the third main head — 
the cure of our divisions — we have discussed the two prin- 
ciples upon which unity must rest; the recognition of our 
equality before God, and the application of the law of love. 
But under this division an additional principle must be 
recognized if a cure is to be effected, namely, present action 
along practicable lines rather than indefinite waiting for 
impossible conditions. Our Commission on Faith and 
Order is asking the churches what concessions in doctrine 
they can make for the sake of unity. The motive here is 
worthy of all praise, but I fear that the method is wrong. 
The method of mutual approach is not along doctrinal 
lines. The intellect discriminates, distinguishes one phase 
of truth from another, hence the intellect is always divisive 
in its tendency. Action calls for power ; it feels the need 
of cooperation, hence action tends to union; labor seeks 
combinations; business tends toward trusts; war makes 
alliances a necessity. There is no present hope of the 
reunion of Christendom upon a credal basis. The church 
must turn from speculation upon the basis of union, and 
enter upon her labor of Christianizing the world, must 
begin doing business for the Kingdom, must engage in 
war against Satan; then, like John Wesley, she will 
speedily cry for a "league offensive and defensive with 
every soldier of Jesus Christ." 

Practical fellowship and cooperation is not an impossible 
ideal. It is by no means clear that Jesus calls upon us to 
sacrifice wholly or in any dangerous sense our various or- 
ganisms and unite in a single external organization. Paul 
illustrates the diversity of the church by the well-known 



CHKISTIAN UNITY 



103 



figure of the body. "If the whole body were an eye, where 
were the hearing ? If the whole were hearing, where were 
the smelling ? . . . And if all were one member where were 
the body?" Christian unity certainly demands such ex- 
ternal organization, adjustment and unification of our 
forces as will enable us to cooperate in our work. But the 
church no more implies one uniform external organization 
than an army implies that all the troops shall be in the 
infantry, the artillery, or the navy. Paul makes as much 
of diversity as of unity. We must not discredit the whole 
history of Protestantism and revert to a sacerdotal phil- 
osophy. Every church has won some priceless privilege 
for humanity which must not be sacrificed by pushing unity 
into uniformity and swallowing up smaller organizations. 
It takes the peculiar graces and service of all the churches 
to represent the infinite Christ. And if we unite with the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or the Methodist 
Protestant Church, it must be with no dream on our part 
of swallowing up their members in a Methodist Episcopal 
Church. On the contrary, we should most solemnly re- 
solve that the ideals for which they stand shall not be 
dimmed in the sight of God or men. All the colors of the 
rainbow must be merged to produce the white light of 
eternal truth. 

Paul in closing his figure of the body makes clear 
Christ's headship of the church. He does not dream that 
this head is himself or Peter or any apostle on earth. "Now 
there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And 
there are differences of administration, but the same Lord. 
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same 
God which worketh all in all." The headship of the 
church, as thus portrayed by Paul, is the blessed Trinity. 
To leave no possible doubt Paul adds: "Now ye are the 



104 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



body of Christ, and members in particular." Aloofness 
from Christ constituted schism. Separation from him 
spells spiritual death. The union of us all in him consti- 
tutes the living church. As Ignatius has well said, 
"Where Christ is, there is the catholic Church." 

Again our coworking must not be at the expense of any 
man's convictions. A Christian Scientist and a scientific 
physician cannot treat the same patient at the same time, 
without one of the two sacrificing his convictions. Two 
teachers, one belonging to the old Chinese school and the 
other trained in modern pedagogy, cannot govern the same 
school. Even more impossible is it for two Christians hold- 
ing radically different views of conversion, of the meaning 
of the church and of the value of the sacraments — however 
consecrated each may be — to unite in the spiritual training 
of the same group of souls ; and any attempt to do so 
means, on one side or the other, disloyalty to convictions 
and the sacrifice of personality. All we can do in such 
cases is to divide our task and each work according to his 
convictions, keep our hearts open for more light, and trust 
that the scientific test of experiment may guide us in the 
end into the truth. For instance, Dr. Hans Rost, an 
eminent Catholic writer on economics, shows by indisput- 
able statistics that the Protestants of Germany hold a 
larger proportion of the important economic, political, and 
scientific positions than their members entitle them to ; and 
he pleads for the universal, unhampered scientific training 
of Roman Catholic children to enable his church to main- 
tain her influence in the modern world. At the same time 
two Protestant writers in Germany show by indisputable 
statistics that Roman Catholic families in Germany are 
larger than Protestant families, and plead for a return 
by Protestants to the old-fashioned family virtues in order 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 



105 



to preserve the Protestant population of Germany. Here 
is a Catholic pleading for the Protestant position, and two 
Protestants are pleading for the Catholic view and practice. 
It is not impossible for even Catholics and Protestants as 
the result of experiments, and especially of Christian 
experience, to reach common ground on many practical 
matters during the coming generation. How much more 
ought it to be possible for our own Methodist people to 
unite for the salvation of our country and of the world ! 
Here, again, let us recognize that any sacrifice of convic- 
tions on either side is a weakening of personality or Chris- 
tian character — the development of which is the supreme 
aim of Christ Hence there must be no sacrifice of our 
convictions on the colored question. Black and white 
brethren in the Methodist Episcopal Church must recog- 
nize that without any sacrifice of convictions, by mutual 
action on both sides — in the North and the South alike — 
we have fallen into different social groups, we worship in 
different churches, and are organized into separate Annual 
Conferences. If, therefore, the colored people themselves 
should say to their white brothers : For the sake of greater 
responsibility and more rapid growth, give us colored mem- 
bers a Central Conference such as you have given Europe, 
India, and China, that we may meet all the other colored 
members in the United States and act upon our common 
problems, but at the same time permit us to hold our mem- 
bership in the Methodist Episcopal Church and our seats 
in the General Conference, as you permit your Chinese 
children — such a favor could be granted with no sacrifice 
of our convictions. 

On the other side, we believe the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, is as much interested and far more deeply 
concerned in a wise and Christian settlement cf the colored 



106 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



problem as we are. One of their great leaders told me 
during the past quadrennium that he did not believe that 
his church would require as the condition of reunion any 
sacrifice of our convictions on the colored question. I 
confess to some modification of my own views and a deep- 
ening of certain fundamental convictions during the 
quadrennium. I had thought that in case our colored 
people wished to leave the family home and form a great 
independent church with all their colored brethren, such 
action might be for the best interests of us all. But I 
have become profoundly convinced that the best interests 
of the Kingdom demand the maintenance of our union 
with our colored brethren. An exclusively white man's 
church is a mutilated church. God save us from any 
further maiming the body of Christ! 

Again, as the American union is impossible without the 
federal States, still more impossible is a world-wide church 
without a large amount of local autonomy. Our church 
already had gone further than either Great Britain or the 
United States in this direction. The United States grants 
the Filipinos a territorial Legislature and pledges them 
ultimate independence, but does not admit their repre- 
sentatives to Congress. Great Britain seats representa- 
tives of Ireland in Parliament, but has not yet granted 
them a local Legislature. She has granted Canada a local 
Legislature, but has not yet seated Canadian representa- 
tives in Westminster. The Methodist Episcopal Church 
has granted Europe and Southern Asia and Eastern Asia 
Central Conferences for the management of their local 
affairs, and at the same time seated their representatives 
in the General Conference. Just because this is the more 
Christian solution of the problem, it is wiser statesmanship 
than the nations have yet displayed. But if Great Britain 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 



107 



grants an Irish Parliament and also grants seats to the 
representatives of Canada and Australia and South Africa 
at Westminster, as she surely will, she must adopt the 
federal principle of the United States and grant a sub- 
ordinate Parliament or Legislature to England, to Scot- 
land and to Wales for the management of purely local 
affairs. So our General Conference is already over- 
whelmed with world-wide and local problems. Moreover, 
having granted China, India, and Europe Central Con- 
ferences for the management of their local affairs, you 
have a plain right to Central Conferences for the manage- 
ment of your local affairs. Already bishops, ministers, 
and laymen within episcopal areas are feeling the need of 
mutual Conferences for the advancement of their schools 
and colleges, of their hospitals and Homes, and of their 
city and rural problems. Even if we were not to unite 
with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, their sug- 
gestion of Quadrennial Conferences is exceedingly wise, 
and some such Conferences are inevitable in a world-wide 
church, such as our own to-day. 

IV. SUMMAKY AND OUTLOOK 

The equality of all Christians before God is not only the 
specific teaching of the New Testament but the inevitable 
outcome of the Christian life. Despite the attempts of the 
priestly party in the old dispensation and of the Judaistic 
party in the early church ; despite the attempts of sacerdo- 
talism in the church of the Middle Ages, and of kingcraft 
and episcopacy in Europe since the Eeformation; despite 
the attempts of capitalism in modern industry, and of the 
white races to dominate the political world; and despite 
the attempts of masculine authority in all ages, the irre- 
pressible movement of the new humanity in Christ is 



108 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



toward religious freedom and equality, toward political 
freedom and equality, toward equality of economic oppor- 
tunities and equality of races and sexes; and under the 
Divine Providence these movements are as irresistible as 
are the incoming tides. 

We are recognizing a new phase of evolution. As the 
human race is multiplying and filling the earth, we need 
all the land for our support. Hence all dangerous and 
even useless species in the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
are being rooted out, while wheat, rice, corn, and the 
domestic animals which supply man's needs are multiply- 
ing. What is this but an inevitable and increasing stage 
of evolution in which we have the survival of the fittest in 
the sense of the most serviceable? A higher illustration 
of this phase of evolution is found in the struggle of races 
in America. The Indian had many noble traits, but he 
was on the whole proud and lazy, unwilling to serve even 
his own family, and demanding large areas of land for the 
spontaneous growth of the fruits and the game sufficient 
for his support. The white man was willing to cultivate 
the soil and live on a tenth of the land which the red man 
demanded. The black man at first showed some less de- 
veloped traits than his Indian cousin. But he was willing 
to serve. Hence under the new evolution, while the red 
man is threatened with extinction, the black man has 
become a permanent factor on the continent : "Blessed are 
the meek : for they shall inherit the earth." 

The new evolution is operating among civilizations and 
religions. God has thrown Christianity into the welter 
of the pagan world along with Buddhism, Hinduism, Con- 
fucianism, Mohammedanism, and has said, "Let the fittest 
survive/' But the fittest is the most serviceable. Moham- 
medanism, with its belief in our God and its hope of the 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 



109 



future life, in many places swept out paganism, because it 
did more for the people who accepted it than paganism 
could do. But Mohammedanism, with its paralyzing 
doctrine of fate and its degrading practice of polygamy and 
slavery and its contempt of modern science, is doomed, and 
already five sixths of its more than two hundred million 
people are under the dominion of so-called Christian gov- 
ernments. Judaism has survived in this struggle of re- 
ligions because the Old Testament does more for the race 
than any other ancient faith, and Reformed Judaism is 
teaching the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount. Who 
doubts that Christianity, with its Fatherhood of God and 
brotherhood of man, with its provisions for sin through 
Christ, with its indwelling Holy Spirit, its law of love 
and its hope of heaven, will supplant all pagan faiths, 
simply because it does more for those who accept it than 
these faiths can possibly do? So in the struggles within 
Christendom, for any single church or nation or race to 
dream of universal sway through divine election or natural 
superiority is for that church or nation or race to repeat 
the program of Satan with its inevitable banishment from 
the kingdom and the life of God. 

Finally, if we can effect this union with each other and 
with God through Christ, we can exercise such moral influ- 
ence during the twentieth century as will save the nations 
from a race war which, if it comes, will desolate our globe. 
The white races constitute fifty-two per cent of the popula- 
tion of our globe, and the yellow races thirty-six per cent. 
With the decreasing rate of growth among our white races, 
and an increasing rate among the yellow races, the popula- 
tion of the globe before the close of the century will be fifty 
per cent white and forty per cent yellow. But tfye white 
races now control politically every continent upon our 



110 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



globe. And the yellow races are shut out of Australia, out 
of North America, and through our Monroe Doctrine prac- 
tically out of South America, out of Europe, out of Africa 
— preeminently the colored man's continent — and through 
Eussia out of Northern Asia. We submit whether the ex- 
clusion by fifty per cent of the population of forty per 
cent from five continents, not all of which are effectively 
occupied by white races, and their restriction to one half 
of one continent has the warrant of either Christianity or 
statesmanship. Japan already feels keenly the injustice 
of these universal restrictions, and the dissatisfaction of 
India and China are inevitable, and not distant. If we 
persist in this greedy policy, we shall soon consolidate the 
yellow races, while we white men are divided into bitter 
camps fighting each other to the death. Only as we Chris- 
tian churches rise above our present divisions, unite with 
each other in unselfish love and above all with Christ, can 
the power of God so pour down upon Christendom as will 
prevent a race war greater and more terrible than any the 
world has ever seen. Above all Christ's prayer was for not 
a merely external union, but for the union of our souls 
with God. The supreme need of the church is the indwell- 
ing of the Holy Spirit. The reenf orcement of our person- 
ality by Christ, the development of the spiritual superman, 
the evolution of a New Humanity in Christ, will convince 
the world that God was in Christ, and that he abides in 
us even as he dwelt in him. "That ye may all be one." 
"I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected 
into one." 



VI 



MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVEKSE 1 

What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of 
man, that thou visitest him? — Psa. 8. 4- 

1. "What is manf What position does man occupy 
in the scale of created beings ? Where does he stand in the 
range of the universe ? Upon this question I have received 
very helpful suggestions from Professor Godet in his re- 
markable article entitled "Angels," found in his Old Testa- 
ment Studies. 

In this universe, so far as we know it, we first find dead 
matter without either species or individuals. Science is 
throwing new light upon matter and the atomic theory of 
the universe is hinting that even this so-called dead matter 
is only imprisoned force. Movements are constantly tak- 
ing place, we are assured by the physicists, upon the part 
of every atom of matter in the universe. This so-called 
dead matter may prove in the last analysis to be a living 
force emanating from Almighty God. It is, however, the 
lowest form of creation. It is what the Germans call "the 
stuff" out of which the universe is made. It is a common 
mass, like the ocean, without either species or individuality. 
Above dead matter we come to the vegetable kingdom. 
Here we have species without individuality. A grain of 
wheat or an apple is simply a specimen of its class. No 
one attaches to the grain of wheat an individual existence. 
Species is everything ; the individual is nothing. If, there- 
monthly lecture before the students of Ohio Wesleyan 
University, February 2, 1890. 

Ill 



112 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



fore, in matter we have neither species nor individuals, in 
the vegetable kingdom we have the species without the 
individual. 

In the animal kingdom we have species with individu- 
ality. The horse or the dog still belongs to a class. It is 
still dominated by the species, but it never can rise above 
its present range of being. However much intelligence it 
may display, it never can cease to be a horse or a dog, nor 
advance to a higher range of being. Instinct is a great 
characteristic of animal intelligence. What is instinct as 
differing from reason? Instinct is the intelligence of the 
species manifesting itself through the individual. Reason 
is the intelligence of the individual enabling him to rise 
above his class. In the mineral kingdom, therefore, we 
have neither individuals nor species, although we have 
hints of species in crystallization and in the various kinds 
of minerals. In the vegetable kingdom the species appears 
but not the individual proved. In the animal kingdom 
the individual appears. But here the individual is domi- 
nated by the instinct of the species and personality does 
not yet show itself. 

Above these three kingdoms lies the kingdom of man 
in which we have individuality with species. Here the 
relation of the two elements which constitute animal life is 
reversed. In the animal, species dominates the individual 
and each animal is governed by instinct or the intelligence 
of the species. In the kingdom of man the individual rises 
above species. The characteristic of man, that which 
distinguishes him from the animal, is free will, and the 
exercise of free will gives rise to personality. In the plant 
kingdom we have simply specimens ; in the animal kingdom 
we have simply instinctive beings; in the human kingdom 
we come to personality. 



MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE 



113 



Is there any kingdom above man? Does not the study 
of this subject, the discovery that in matter we have 
neither species nor individuals, that in plants we have 
species without individuals, that in animals we have species 
with individuals, and in man that we have individuals in 
species, suggest a higher order of being, namely, an order 
in which we have individuals without the species? These 
constitute the angels, or the spiritual existences which 
stand above us. You notice that in the Bible man is 
always referred to as the son of man. His entrance upon 
the world is through the process of affiliation. He springs 
from the species and is to a certain extent a child of the 
species. So that, as I said in the last sermon, inheritance 
is one of the great forces in our human life. The angels, 
however, are never spoken of as the sons of angels. They 
always are referred to as the direct creatures of God. 
Notice, therefore, the difference in the fall of beings in these 
two classes. The fall of Adam dragged us all down, 
because we all are under the dominion of the species to a 
certain extent. We read also that a certain angel fell and, 
in fact, that other angels joined him in his rebellion. The 
fall of one angel, however, did not drag down the whole 
hierarchy of angels because there was no species. Each 
angel derives its life directly from God and not immedi- 
ately through angelic progenitors. The representation of 
this higher order of beings, therefore, as given in the Bible 
is in exact accord with what we should expect from a 
study of these lower order of beings. There is, therefore, 
above man a higher order of beings, an order in which 
personality reaches its culmination, an order in which the 
creature is not under the dominion of the species, but 
derives its life directly from the Creator. All things con- 
sist in God. But our connection with God is more or 



114 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



less indirect or mediate. We have, therefore, in the range 
of the universe : first, matter, furthest removed from God ; 
second, plants without individuality, in which simply the 
species has derived its existence from God; third, animals 
with individuality, in which the life comes to particular 
animals indirectly from the species instead of directly from 
God ; fourth, men, in which the life is derived from species 
in part and directly from God through communion in part ; 
fifth, the angels, in which the life is derived directly from 
God and not indirectly from any species. 

The question at once arises as to whether or not this 
state may not be undesirable in some of its phases. We 
can see how the angelic life lifts us above the dominion of 
the senses and above the struggles against inherited appe- 
tites. But most people think that the angels are without 
bodies, and almost prefer to continue in their present 
physical state rather than live as mere shadows called 
angels. The whole teaching of the Bible, however, is that 
angels are not without bodies. "There are," says Paul, 
"earthly or terrestrial bodies and celestial bodies." The 
analogy would have been completely broken if Paul meant 
to pass from our physical organization to stars and suns. 
I stand squarely with Meyer in saying that Paul here 
teaches that there are angelic or celestial bodies as well as 
terrestrial or physical bodies. The difference between 
these spiritual bodies and our physical bodies is that the 
former are perfectly responsible to the will. After Christ's 
resurrection when he desired to eat, he ate the broiled fish. 
When he desired to be in the room with his disciples, he 
was at once present. When he desired that the spiritual 
body should display the wounds which he had received, they 
were at once visible. When he desired to be in heaven and 
lifted his thought there, the body was perfectly responsive 



MAX'S PLACE IN THE UNIVEKSE 



115 



to the will, and the ascension took place. So far, therefore, 
from being mere shadows in the angelic world, you will 
have a body which is as much superior to this body as spirit, 
is to matter, a body which is perfectly responsive to your 
will. It seems a contradiction to use the words "spiritual 
body." But these are the exact words which Paul uses. 
There is, he says, "a natural body" — or, a better transla- 
tion would be, "a psychical body" — and there is a 
"spiritual body." "The first man Adam was made a living 
soul [psychos], the last Adam was made a quickening 
spirit, Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but 
that which is natural; and afterward that which is spir- 
itual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second 
man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are 
they also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are 
they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the 
image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the 
heavenly." 

Again we are often puzzled as to whether natural love 
exists among the angels. We feel that there must be some 
loss in the angelic life in the absence of what we call family 
affection. Here, again, if you look at the various orders of 
existences, you will find constant increase of true love. In 
plant life there seems to be no love at all. One branch 
of a tree will, if able, draw to itself all the nourishment 
which the stock affords, while other branches of the same 
trunk are perishing for lack of food. In animals there is 
instinctive love. The mother nourishes her young and 
defends them with her life. This love, however, is not a 
matter of personal choice, but is the manifestation of a 
purely instinctive affection. It is a vast advantage to the 
species. However, one hardly can give the individual 
credit for a love which is purely instinctive. In man, on 



116 THE DEMAND FOE CHKIST 



the other hand, love begins as an instinctive love, but passes 
into a voluntary affection. The mother's first love for her 
ohild is probably instinctive. But among us all higher 
love is voluntary and is the result of personal choices. 
Human love, therefore, especially in the family, is partly 
instinctive. It springs in part from our physical demands. 
In all its loftiest ranges, however, it is voluntary and is 
manifested by voluntary sacrifices for each other. Angelic 
love, upon the other hand, is wholly voluntary and entirely 
pure. It is not instinctive. It does not grow out of any 
physical demands. It, therefore, belongs to a higher realm 
of love. It is the same love with which God has loved us. 
There is, accordingly, above man a range of beings dis- 
tinctively higher than mankind in its present earthly stage. 

2. "That thou visited him/' We have thus found man 
occupying a position midway between the animal and the 
angel. Stranger still, we find his present position to be a 
very unstable one. On one side of his nature he is 
strangely beset with temptations which, yielded to, will drag 
him down to beastliness. On the other side he is filled 
with aspirations which, if followed, will lead him to the 
platform of the angels. God apparently has paused in the 
midst of our creation for our decision as to how the work 
shall be completed. We have long since passed that child- 
hood stage of civilization when man hopes to triumph over 
nature by his unaided physical powers. It was once a 
great feat to swim the Hellespont from Europe to Asia, 
to win the race at the Olympian game, or to engage in 
personal combat with the leader of the enemy. But the 
days of Goliaths are past. Who now swims the ocean 
from continent to continent? Our success to-day depends 
on the forces that surround us. In steam and electricity 
men find forces infinitely surpassing this physical strength, 



MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVEESE 117 

and the man who forms the closest union with the forces 
of the universe is the master of our modern life. Men are 
grasping the same thought in this mental and spiritual 
struggle. A man's success depends very slightly upon his 
unaided efforts, very much upon his relation to the higher 
and lower forces which surround him. Man's mind is an 
empty vessel, waiting to be filled either with the inspiration 
of the Almighty or with base thoughts from the lower 
world. Man is simply capacity, plus a power of choice. 
By this fateful boon of freedom he accepts the solicitations 
to evil and sinks down to a lower plane of being, or else 
links himself with Christ, and through this union with 
Christ breaks the power of inherited evil actions and per- 
sonality and becomes a member of the New Humanity. 
It is this instability of our present position, this fact that 
man is ever tending downward, which makes the invoca- 
tion of heathen deities by Homer and Virgil, by Demos- 
thenes and Plato and Socrates no mere dead form. These 
men, and all great minds in the history of the world, have 
had a conviction that the truths which they uttered and 
the sciences which they discovered were in some large 
measure given to them through some intelligence outside 
themselves, rather than originated by their own minds. 
This conviction of a lack of originality is the most striking 
characteristic of men like Washington, Newton, Moses. 
Humility is the unfailing mark of all true greatness. "The 
Son can do nothing of himself, . . . but what he seeth the 
Father do, . . . these doeth the Son likewise." 

Once more all bad men bear similar testimony. They 
declare that their evil is not self -originated. They always 
attribute it to some evil outside of and independent of 
themselves. Jesse Pomeroy, the most cruel boy murderer 
of modern times, declared when asked why he committed 



118 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



his crimes, "I do not know ; something prompted me to do 
them"; that is, this boy murderer is sure that the sugges- 
tion to commit the murders came from without. Guiteau 
held the same conviction, only he thought that the spirit 
which prompted him to do his work was the spirit of God 
instead of the spirit of the devil. Now, this constant testi- 
mony of all great criminals, this feeling that they are 
tempted by some being outside themselves, is not a mere 
false statement on their part. They bear witness to that 
conviction in the solemn moments of their dying. It is an 
honest conviction of every great sinner. Temptation is 
something, therefore, which again and again comes to our 
souls from without. To be sure, it appeals to us through 
some tendency toward evil on our part, either a lower plane 
of life or else is advancing to a higher order of being which 
alone can account for the universal sense of responsibility 
in the race. This is the meaning of probation. The old 
pictures of half -formed animals forming themselves out of 
the earth find new significance when applied to man. He 
is an unfinished being, half animal, half angel. The in- 
dividual is striving to rise above the corruption inherited 
through Adam and to become a real son of God. This 
forms the tragedy of our human history. Do you not see 
the significance of the new birth? Do you not see what 
Paul meant when he wrote, "As in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive" ? 

The testimony of the race witnesses to the fact of our 
visitation by powers outside ourselves. No great man ever 
boasts of his originality. The prophet is the messenger. 
The discoverer is the open-minded man who accepts the 
light flashed upon his brow. The truly great never feel 
that their truths are self -originated. The appeals to the 
gods by Homer, Virgil, Socrates, iEschylus and Demos- 



MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE 119 



thenes were not mere empty form. Why do such men 
do themselves the injustice of denying their originality if 
they did not have the conviction that their truths were 
received rather than originated ? I do not think that this 
uniform testimony of great criminals in their dying 
moments is given simply to shield themselves. While they 
confess their guilt in yielding and in permitting evil forces 
to usurp the throne of their judgment, yet they bear God 
witness to the fact that "we wrestle not against flesh and 
blood" alone. 

Similar to this is the testimony of all good men. No 
thoroughly good man ever has doubted that his goodness 
came to him from other than original sources. If men 
say with all honesty, "This act is mine/' how can we 
account for the humility which is the sure accompaniment 
of real goodness? How can we account for the protesta- 
tions of these men that their goodness has been suggested 
to them, that they are at best only willing instruments of 
the Divine Providence, were not this conviction produced 
by the facts of man's spiritual experience ? We are there- 
fore, by the testimony of all great men, of all bad men, of 
all good men, in contact with other spiritual forces outside 
of mankind, and above and below us in moral goodness. 

An analysis of the process which takes place in an act of 
conscience reveals the same truth. John says of Christ 
that he is the true light which lighteth every man coming 
into the world. Corresponding to this statement is the 
fact that in all human experience man is ever prompted to 
consider the moral qualities of actions. That prompting 
is the work of the Holy Spirit. The judgment that men 
form when their attention has been called to the moral 
quality of acts depends upon their education and their 
environment. The Holy Spirit will indeed enlighten our 



120 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



minds if we seek for that enlightenment. We also may 
learn from the study of God in nature, and above all from 
the Bible, what the will of God is concerning us. But this 
judgment which we reach is the result of our own mental 
processes. God's Spirit does not dethrone our reason and 
pronounce for us. The judgment, therefore, which you 
form is your own judgment, and may be correct or may 
not be correct, according as you have used or failed to use 
the means of enlightenment which God has put into your 
hands. But the moment a judgment is reached in regard 
to a moral duty, then comes the Holy Ghost again and 
prompts us to do that duty. Then again the Holy Ghost 
pauses in his work. He does not cause your own will to 
abdicate any more than he dethrones your reason. He 
allows you to make the choice either to perform this duty 
or to reject it. But immediately following that choice 
there comes an approval or a condemnation which is the 
work of the Holy Spirit. Paul says, "When the Gentiles, 
which have not the law, do by nature the things contained 
in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto them- 
selves: which show the work of the law written in their 
hearts, and their consciences, also bearing witness, . . . 
while accusing or else excusing one another." Again he 
uses another expression which shows how fully he identifies 
conscience with the witness of the Spirit. In writing to 
the Corinthians he says, "Our rejoicing is this, the testi- 
mony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly 
sincerity ... of God, we have had our conversation in the 
world, and more abundantly to you- ward." Here he de- 
clares that conscience bears witness to his holiness, that 
conscience bears witness to the fact that he is living in the 
grace of God. In another place he speaks of the Holy 
Spirit bearing witness to our adoption. What, then, can 



MAN'S PLACE m THE UNIVEESE 



121 



he mean by saying that conscience bears witness to a 
man's holiness, except by saying that the approval or 
disapproval of conscience is God's Spirit speaking to our 
souls. John Wesley, in a sermon upon this very text, took 
this view of conscience and defined conscience as "the 
indirect work of the Holy Spirit/' whereas the witness of 
the Spirit is his direct work. 

We have now presented briefly and imperfectly the 
theory of man as taught us in God's Word. Over against 
this theory stands the materialistic theory of man. I am 
not now saying that every materialist is an evolutionist. 
Very many who hold the spiritual view of man think that 
evolution was the method by which God introduced him to 
this earth. Other evolutionists have believed that there 
is no kingdom above man; that man has no spiritual 
nature; that he is purely materialistic in his origin, and 
that he is destined to annihilation. You see in a moment 
which is the nobler and grander conception of man. Am 
I preaching this afternoon to beings in human form, but 
to beings which, after all, are only animal in their origin, 
beastly in their characteristic motives, and destined to 
annihilation, or am I preaching to beings who feel in 
themselves that this life is a life of probation, who feel 
conscious of temptations to lower life on the one hand and 
to divine summonses to a higher life upon the other? Does 
not your own conscience bear witness to the fact that there 
are higher forces around you than mere material forces? 
Can you account for the voice of conscience within you, 
save by saying that it is the voice of God above you ? Here 
comes the summons to do a good act. Is the summons 
self -originated ? Nay, do you not yourself consider that 
summons as a message which comes to you from without? 
Do not you yourself decide either .that you will obey or dis- 



122 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



obey that summons? The summons, therefore, was not 
originated in your personality. It is only as you accept it 
from without and make it your choice that it enters into 
and becomes a part of you. Your own consciousness, 
therefore, witnesses to the fact that you are in contact with 
other forces in this universe, both for evil and for good. 
The testimony of all other people in history confirms you 
in your own conviction. The testimony of your own con- 
sciousness is established by the universal consciousness of 
the race. Above all, the plain teachings of the Word of 
God are unmistakable in regard to man's spiritual origin 
and his immortal destiny. There is not a shadow of doubt 
in God's Word in regard to these qualities in man's nature. 
From the first chapter of Genesis, which declares that God 
breathed his Spirit into man, down to the last chapter of 
Revelation, which represents the human race as gathered 
about the throne and participating with the angels in the 
kingdom of heaven, the whole teaching of this Word reen- 
f orces the declarations of your own consciousness that man 
is a spiritual being with an immortal destiny before him. 
I therefore stand with the highest and noblest of the race ; 
I stand upon the testimony of my own consciousness; I 
stand upon the consciousness of all the race, upon the 
Word of God, and upon the testimony of Jesus in regard to 
man's possibilities. 

Some of you are wrestling with doubts. You cry out in 
your anguish, "How may I know that God visits me?" 
You must at this point adopt the experimental method, the 
method of all science. "If any man will do his will, he 
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or 
whether I speak from myself," says Jesus. You reply, 
"This dethrones reason at the beginning of the Christian 
life, and demands an act of trust." But did you ever 



MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE 123 



think that trust is the gateway by which you enter every 
service and art in life ? If a boy comes to the professor 
of mathematics and says, "Make plain to me this problem 
in differential calculus, and I will enter your department/' 
the professor at once replies : "I can only make plain this 
abstruse proposition when you have fulfilled the conditions. 
If you will study with me until your reasoning faculties 
are developed, I can make plain the proposition." And 
the boy enters upon the study of pre-mathematics, the most 
exact science in our curriculum of faith. If a young man 
stands at the threshold of the university and says : "Enter- 
ing college is a step into an unknown realm. Show to me 
beforehand the light which rests upon the hills of science 
and the mountains of human culture and I will climb 
their steep," by no possibility can you demonstrate to 
this young man the difference between his present ignor- 
ance and his future wisdom save by leading him along the 
pathway of intellectual endeavor. He knows something 
of his present ignorance. He knows that what wisdom he 
has acquired is good. He has the testimony of others. 
He must trust these and fulfill the conditions before more 
light can come. So you know the unsatisfactoriness of a 
state of doubt. You know that some portions of light and 
peace have come so far as you have been obedient to the 
true light, which lighteth every man coming into the world. 
You have the testimony of thousands who have found spir- 
itual peace and light by making the test to which Christ 
invites us. Will you demand a test at the threshold of the 
church which you did not demand on entering the uni- 
versity? Will you in the name of a false rumor demand 
beforehand a demonstration in Christianity which never 
has been furnished in the realm of pre-mathematics ? 
Recognizing that your life is a probation ; recognizing the 



124 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



instability of your present moral state, beset by tempta- 
tions which would drag you downward, and conscious of 
heavenly impulses ; listening to the testimony of the noblest 
men and to the voice of Jesus in regard to your spiritual 
possibilities, with your heart crying out for the living 
God, will you not enter this higher life by the same act of 
faith which you have exercised at every stage of your 
existence ? 

Will not the very experiment exalt you rather than de- 
throne your reason? Do you already believe in purity of 
heart and long to be made pure in life? Does not Jesus 
summon you to a purity of heart which you have not thus 
far known ? Does he not summon you to a courage which 
your reason has always approved, and to a loftier moral 
courage than you have yet attained to ? Does he not sum- 
mon you to the abandonment of every evil habit and to 
obedience of every noble impulse ? Will you be less manly 
and womanly by this experiment, if you can go no further, 
of accepting Christ as your Lord and Saviour? When, 
therefore, the summons is to the surrender of your will to 
the highest and noblest being in the universe, and when 
this experiment has in it the possibilities of achieving a 
higher position in the scale of created being, of breaking 
the fetters of inherited sin and becoming a part of the 
New Humanity in Christ, can you afford not to make a 
trial? 

3. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels/' 
What are the characteristics of man's nature which leads 
God to declare that he has made him a little lower than 
himself? The first is his spirituality. He is something 
infinitely above the material world. Mountains may fall 
upon him and crush his body, lightning may strike him 
and drive the breath of life out of him, the wild beast may 



MAN'S PLACE 1ST THE UNIVEESE 



125 



rend him, the ocean may swallow him up, man feels again 
and again as he stands face to face with nature the intima- 
tions of his mortality, and the certainty of the cessation of 
this physical life. And yet he is greater than the entire 
physical universe. The mountains may fall upon the 
body, but they cannot annihilate the spirit. The ocean 
may swallow him up in its majestic and mysterious depths, 
but the ocean cannot swallow up the soul. It will outlast 
this physical world. A single soul outweighs the globe 
on which it lives. Daniel Webster once pointed to a news- 
boy upon the streets and said, "That boy's soul is worth 
more than this physical universe." That statement is true 
of your own soul, and of my soul. We shall be present to 
witness the disappearance of the physical universe. We 
shall see the mountains melt and the oceans disappear. We 
shall see the moon turning into blood and the fires of the 
sun burning out. We shall be present in the wreck of 
matter and the crash of worlds. "Thou art infinitely 
greater in that thou art a man than is any man in that he 
is a king." Again and again we say to young people, "Cut 
your garments according to your cloth." Yes, cut your 
garments according to your cloth. But remember that 
only the seamless robe of Christ's righteousness can fit you 
for the company of the angels and the purity of heaven. 
Only as you plan for eternity have you planned worthily 
of yourself. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the 
angels." 

The mark of your greatness is your freedom. This is 
a distinctly divine faculty. It is the faculty which enables 
man to be man. It is only through the wise use of free- 
dom, it is only through the choices that he makes that man 
truly reaches his personality. You can maintain your 
choices against the solicitations of the lower nature. You 



126 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



can this afternoon choose God and holiness and everlasting 
life and you can say to all the devils of appetite and 
passion, "Get thee behind me, Satan." Nay, more, this 
"f atef ul boon of freedom" is such that you can resist all the 
influences of all the good men that can be brought to bear 
upon the human soul. No pleading can break your own 
will. No choice upon the part of others can be substituted 
for your own choice. No efforts upon the part of this 
entire universe can overslaugh the freedom of one single 
soul and force that soul into the kingdom before it decides 
for itself. Nay, more, in this "f ateful boon of freedom," a 
man can stand face to face with God and can hold back the 
Almighty. It is only in your will that you are omnipotent. 
And so far as your own destiny is concerned you are 
absolutely omnipotent. You can say to God himself, 
"Thus far shalt thou come and no farther." Christ only 
stands at the door of your heart and knocks. Even the 
Deity will not overslaugh your freedom, will not thrust 
itself upon you against your will. "What is man, that 
thou art mindful of him?" Think of your spirituality, 
think of the fact that your soul outweighs the entire 
physical universe, think of the marvelous power of freedom 
by which you can become identified with God or by which 
you can resist the Almighty, and then you may realize 
something of what the psalmist meant when he cried, 
"Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." 

You have not simply freedom and spirituality, but 
involved in your spirituality is immortality. This subject 
is literally incomprehensible. The human imagination 
falls prostrate before its effort to grasp this doctrine. The 
endless years of God are yours. Dr. McCabe said the 
other day in our prayer meeting that the greatest work in 
the universe was the salvation of a soul. He spoke of that 



MAN'S PLACE IN THE TTNIVEESE 



127 



great astronomer who had discovered a new star and whose 
name, by the consent of all the astronomers in the world, 
has been attached to that great distant world. What a 
triumph of human genius ! What an honor for a man to 
have, not the street of a city named after him simply, not 
the city itself named after him, not a commonwealth bear- 
ing his name, not simply an ever-flowing river nor the 
everlasting hills, but to have an entire world bearing his 
name down to the end of time ! But you who bring one 
soul to Christ have secured an infinitely higher honor 
than he who has emblazoned his name upon a distant 
world. That soul will be present in the wreck of matter 
and the crash of worlds. Nay, eternity will scarcely have 
begun then. I shall see you millions upon millions of 
years from to-day and we shall then be younger than I 
feel this afternoon. We read in the Bible of the morning 
stars singing together. Infinite years after the songs of 
the morning stars have risen to the high praises of their 
noontide, and have sunk to the anthems of the evening,, 
infinite years beyond that we shall see each other. Then 
time shall cease. But you and I shall be present when 
eternity begins. Is any exhortation needed to lead you to 
the wisest choice in regard to your spiritual life ? Think- 
ing of your place in the universe of God, feeling these con- 
flicting desires within you, appetite dragging you down, 
aspiration drawing you heavenward, assured that angels and 
devils are wrestling for the possession of your soul because 
they realize its infinite worth better than you now realize 
it, with God Almighty so interested in you and so loving 
you that he "sent his only Son to die for your redemption," 
with the Holy Ghost pleading with you to-day, with 
eternity opening up with its infinite possibilities, what 
decisions will you reach to-day ? 



VII 



HOW TO BECOME THE BEST POSSIBLE 
PBEACHEE 1 

This is Commemoration Day. I know no better way of 
hallowing the memory of the founder of Drew Theological 
Seminary, and of the men whose labors here have made her 
name known round the world, than to help the young men 
within her walls to become the best possible preachers. 

Eloquence, as the word implies, is the speaking out the 
ihought which is within one. Herbert Spencer, in his 
remarkable essay on "Style," thinks that style consists in 
the conveyance of the thought of the speaker to the hearers 
with the least possible effort upon the hearers' part. But 
the preacher is something more than a mental postal 
carrier. He is not content to carry his thought to the 
minds of other men and leave it at their disposal. He 
aims, rather, to make his purposes enter into and become 
part of the persons to whom he speaks. His success is 
measured by the degree to which his thought and feeling 
and purpose become incarnate in other lives. Preaching 
is the art of spiritual reproduction. God is the supreme 
preacher. He bodies forth his wisdom and his power in 
the physical universe. He expresses his truth and his love 
for us in revelation. But revelation culminates in the 
incarnation, and the supreme aim of Christ is to help us 
to become children of God. The scientist thinks God's 
thought after him ; the preacher does God's work with him. 

1 Address delivered before the students of Drew Theological 
Seminary, Madison, N. J., on Commemoration Day, October 
18, 1900. 

128 



THE BEST POSSIBLE PREACHER 129 



I. The Mastery op Truth 

The first requisite of preaching is the mastery of the 
truth. We occasionally hear some declamation against doc- 
trinal preaching. If doctrinal preaching means simply that 
parrotlike repetition of truths which the speaker never com- 
prehended, then the sooner we are rid of it the better. But 
doctrine, as the word itself indicates, means teaching, and 
the preacher must be a teacher. Emerson says that man 
will be best heard upon a public occasion who knows most 
upon the subject in hand. Old Dr. Emmons was ac- 
customed to say that the greatest fault in delivery is not 
having anything to deliver. "Fill up the cask, young 
men," was the advice which this profound theologian was 
constantly giving to his students. 

The reason why truth is essential to a sermon is because 
truth is simply an expression of the laws of the universe. 
However much the speaker may lack in art, or even in 
personal character, if he utters the truth upon the subject 
in hand, the world must heed his message, because the laws 
of the universe are on his side. Newton possessed little 
art and Bacon was lacking in character, but the world and 
the church were forced to accept the teachings of these 
men, because their truth was but an expression of the 
thought of God, and the universe was constantly confirm- 
ing it. 

Beading. Perhaps the first condition for the mastery 
of truth is the reading of good books. Frederick Robert- 
son, the most helpful preacher of this generation, was a 
profound student of Plato and of the Bible. Socrates was 
accustomed to say that "every man is sufficiently eloquent 
in that which he clearly understands." Do not try to 
master all of the books which are published, even in 



130 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



theology. Dr. Latimer was accustomed to say that Ger- 
many during the last thirty years has given us only three 
great books, Dorner's Person of Christ, Rothe's Ethik, and 
Muller's Christian Doctrine of Sin. Master these three 
great works and you can neglect a hundred lesser volumes. 
I began reading Demosthenes's "Oration on the Crown" as 
a college student, with the vague conception that eloquence 
was some ethereal quality by which men were constrained 
to accept the will of the speaker against their judgment. 
The "Oration on the Crown" was a revelation to me. 
Demosthenes knew the entire history of Greece; he had 
mastered the principles underlying Greek development, 
and he presented the real philosophy of history in that 
marvelous oration. One day, in my surprise and en- 
thusiasm over the fresh discovery, I said to the professor, 
"There is no trick at all in Demosthenes's eloquence; I 
could make as good a speech myself if I only knew as 
much." 

"Doubtless you could," replied the professor, "if you 
only knew as much." 

While the young preacher should master a few great 
volumes he should be steeped to the lips in the Bible. Be, 
as John Wesley said, a man of one book, and let that book 
be God's Word. 

Meditation. But reading must be supplemented by 
thinking. The curse of modern life is that we read the 
daily newspapers and think in flocks and herds. The 
prophet is a solitary thinker. It was to the everlasting ; 
credit of Emerson and Darwin as students that they con- 
sented to poor grades in their classes rather than attempt 
to memorize and repeat like parrots the lessons prescribed 
for them. They would not take mental food more rapidly 
than they could digest it. The secret of Newton's dis- 



THE BEST POSSIBLE PREACHER 131 



coveries of the laws of nature was, in his own language, 
"Thinking, thinking, thinking." As well call a mere re- 
cruiting officer a great general as to reckon a mere en- 
cyclopedist as a great orator. The great preacher may, 
like Shakespeare, borrow materials from various sources, 
but he will so assimilate his truth and recast it that it will 
come forth with the stamp of his imperial genius upon it. 

Openness of Mind. But next to reading and meditation 
the third condition for the mastery of the truth is openness 
of mind. Did you ever think that you probably learned 
more during the first five years of your life than during 
any subsequent ten or fifteen years of your experience? 
The child learns an almost complete use of his mother 
tongue and the complete use of hands and feet and all the 
organs of the body before he is five years old. The reason 
many of us cease to grow early is because of our intel- 
lectual laziness and our love of conformity. We do not 
keep our minds open to new truth. We do not give expres- 
sion to the fresh impressions which truth makes upon our 
minds. We strive to conform to the standard set by other 
people, until we lose our freshness and originality. Most 
men's minds have crystallized by the time they are fifteen 
years of age. They seldom change their political convic- 
tions after boyhood. They often select their professions 
before they are twenty years of age. Even prayer, which 
should be supremely an act of standing before God with 
open mind, saying, "Speak, Lord ; for thy servant heareth," 
is rather an attempt to persuade the Almighty to accept 
our ways of thinking. You have heard of the young 
minister who told the Bishop at a Conference very con- 
fidentially that the Lord had directed him to select a 
certain young lady whom he had met at the Conference as 
his future wife. The Bishop looked puzzled and presently 



132 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



replied that he felt sure there must be some mistake, for 
he was the third young man who had told him during the 
week that the Lord had directed him to select that woman 
for a wife. Even praying in such cases, if I may use the 
expression, becomes an attempt to "log roll" the Almighty. 

Does it not strike you as strange that during all the 
wrestling in prayer which occurred on both sides during 
our Civil War no man changed his convictions? Stone- 
wall Jackson was so strenuous in his praying that God took 
him up to heaven in a cloud of war in order that his 
servant with a breaking heart might see that the heavenly 
Father was answering his petition in a vastly wiser manner 
than the Southern general dreamed. Nothing so impresses 
me in studying the development of Jesus as his openness of 
mind. He has not the slightest regard for consistency. 
At one moment he discourages his mother in regard to a 
miracle and a few minutes later performs the miracle. He 
refuses to go up to Jerusalem with his brethren and a 
little later goes up in secret. The reason for his sudden 
changes and rapid development was that his eyes were 
always upon God. "The Son can do nothing of himself, 
but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he 
doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." Openness of 
mind, the scientific spirit, a fine judicial candor is a crying 
need of the young theologian. There is yet new light to 
break out of the Word of God. 

The Obedient Will. But more important for the 
mastery of the truth than broad reading and deep thinking 
and openness of mind is the obedient will. The most 
striking fact to the student of anthropology is the chasm 
existing between our conduct and our convictions. The 
great work of the preacher is not so much to give the world 
new light as to show men how they may find power in 



THE BEST POSSIBLE PREACHER 133 



Jesus Christ and through the indwelling Spirit to live 
up to the light which they have. This high living is 
essential to the prophetic spirit. You will never be called 
to be prophets of your age, you will never see visions and 
dream of the undeveloped possibilities of human nature 
until you live up to the light which God has already vouch- 
safed to you. Truth is not a commodity to be put up in 
packages called sermons and dealt out to your people, in 
return for which you are to receive their applause and 
support. Traffic with the truth and you lose the truth. 
Instead of striving to possess the truth be content rather to 
let the truth possess you. Be God's mouthpiece, his mes- 
senger> emptying yourself of self-will and becoming a mere 
hollow tube through whom he speaks to men. Be possessed 
of the passion for truth and of a passion for souls. 

Interpreters of Truth. In concluding my words upon 
the truth let me assure you that it is possible for you to be 
doctrinal preachers in a deep and high sense of that term 
and yet not indulge in a mere parrotlike repetition of the 
contents of theological encyclopedias. Every age must 
think out its theology for itself, and it is your peculiar 
privilege, young men, to interpret freshly, in accordance 
with the scientific spirit, the great truths of revelation to 
the men of the twentieth century. I know no better 
earthly pattern of what I would have you be as preachers 
of the truth than was John Wesley. Wesley did for 
Christianity, in some measure, what Bacon did for science. 
Bacon found the scientists busy with abstract theories and 
indulging in a priori speculations. He taught the phil- 
osophers to submit their speculations to the practical test 
of experiment, and thus he became the father of modern 
science. Wesley did for theology what Bacon did for the 
philosophy of his day. Wesley's appeal to experience 



134 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



exactly corresponds to Bacon's appeal to experiment. 
Wesley overthrew the Calvinistic theology, not through 
The Arminian Magazine, but by demonstrating that Cal- 
vinistic theology could not quicken the conscience of the 
nation and give rise to a great spiritual awakening, such 
as he desired to produce in England. It was by the test 
of experiment in revival work, not by the logic of the 
articles in The Arminian Magazine, that Wesley gave our 
Anglo-Saxon peoples the Arminian theology — the golden 
mean in philosophy, a theology exactly adapted to our prac- 
tical genius and fitting us for the moral leadership of the 
world. The Britannica may, indeed, say that Wesley does 
not deserve to be ranked as a philosophical thinker. But, 
like Newton and Bacon and Augustine, Wesley becomes 
one of the great leaders of the world because he applied, in 
part at least, the scientific method to the solution of theo- 
logical problems. Wesley's unfinished task remains for 
completion at your hands. God grant that you may be 
deep readers, profound thinkers, men of open mind and 
obedient will, so that God may be able to use you as the 
prophets of the twentieth century. 

II. The Art of Expression 

The second requisite of successful preaching is art. By 
art I mean, in the first place, the expression of the truth 
in its ideal form. If you simply spoke your own message, 
young men, you could not then afford to come into the 
pulpit with a slovenly manner. I have known a strong 
man to prove wholly unacceptable to his people because of 
his unbrushed boots or his soiled necktie or his neglected 
cuffs. How much less can we afford to offend in manner 
when we appear as messengers of the heavenly Kingdom. 
But by art I mean not simply attention to personal dress 



THE BEST POSSIBLE PREACHER 135 



and manners, but the aim to make your language the most 
perfect embodiment of your thought and feeling and 
purpose. If your character is only pure the highest art is 
found in perfect sincerity. Art has done its utmost when 
it has perfectly revealed that which is within. Water is 
transparent and faultless when it reveals pearls, if there are 
pearls at the bottom, and mud, if there is only mud at the 
bottom. But, strange to say, perfect naturalness is one of 
the rarest arts in the public speaker. Indeed, few of us 
have a voice like Spurgeon's which will reach five thousand 
people, and yet sound entirely natural. Few of us have the 
silver tones of a Phillips, on which our messages may ring 
out as if flung from heaven. With even the Greek 
language, a more perfect medium of expression than our 
English tongue, Demosthenes recognized that it was diffi- 
cult to make the oration express all the varying shades of 
thought and feeling, so that he said the great speech must 
be as it were "carved in brass." Browning sings : ~~ 

"What hand and brain went ever paired, 
What heart alike conceived and dared, 
What act proved all its thought had been, 
What will but felt the fleshly screen?" 

Every great work in literature consists of the truth of 
the age from which the work sprang, embodied in the 
highest literary form. The great works in literature, like 
the writings of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare 
and so forth, have usually been poetry, because the poet has 
been willing to labor over the form as well as over the 
message which he has for the world. 

"In the elder days of art 

Builders wrought with patient care, 
Each unseen a hidden part; 
For gods see everywhere." 



13G THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



But art is not simply the ideal embodiment of the truth. 
It consists in the adaptation of the truth to the persons to 
whom you speak. Mrs. Wesley was asked one time why 
she told a certain lesson to her boys over and over again, 
twenty times. "Because/* replied Mrs. Wesley, "they had 
not learned when I had told them nineteen times." So 
the preacher must give line upon line and precept upon 
precept, here a little and there a little, because he 
loves his people and cannot rest until they accept the 
truth. 

The secret of art is love of the truth and love of the 
people. Love endureth all things, hopeth all things, be- 
lieveth all things. Such love is sure to make one practical 
and also hopeful. If you are a pessimist in your phil- 
osphy first correct your digestion. If your pessimism still 
persists, then go to Wall Street and become a bear on the 
market, or at least get out of the ministry. No man has 
any right to become a messenger of the Kingdom, to at- 
tempt to tell men of the hopes of the new humanity in 
Jesus Christ, who does not see the unpicturable possi- 
bilities of human nature. 

I am told that one of our ministers saw in Professor 
Bowne, of Boston University, when he was a lad simply a 
good express agent at the best, and advised him to continue 
driving his cart, and that another minister saw in him the 
possibilities of a scholar, and encouraged him to go to 
college. The very fact that multitudes of people can read 
the poetry of Shakespeare or the psalms of David or the 
Gospel of John and appreciate these marvelous products 
shows that they have the same generic qualities which the 
creators of these great literatures possessed. If Shake- 
speare passed from a puling babe to the greatest genius 
our English literature has produced in the short space of 



THE BEST POSSIBLE PEEACHEE 137 



fifty years, what, think you, are the possibilities of the 
dullest man in your audience after he has had a thousand 
years of development on the other side? 

The reconciliation of the real and the ideal in art arises 
from the fact that art, in its highest form, is the expression 
of the divine mind, and that the men to whom we minister 
are created in the divine image. I never think of art in 
its ideal form and of art as adaptation without two pictures 
rising in my mind. I see, in the first place, Wendell 
Phillips, the prophet of freedom, standing upon the moun- 
tain heights of liberty and summoning the people either to 
climb these mountain heights or else warning them that 
they would perish in the valley below. Sometimes, when 
the people seemed deaf to his entreaties, the prophet's ex- 
hortation turned to cursing. I see, on the other hand, 
another man going down into the valley where the people 
lived, not that he might win their votes and be popular and 
abide with them in the valley, but that he might lead them 
step by step from their lower position up the mountain 
heights to freedom. God pity the American people if the 
time ever comes when we cease to honor such prophets as 
Wendell Phillips. But while I honor Phillips as the 
prophet of freedom, I love more Abraham Lincoln, who 
was not content to stand upon the mountain heights and 
curse the people below him, who was not content to go 
down in the valley and abide with the people like a 
demagogue, but who, like a shepherd of the nation, led us 
from the lower plains of slavery up the mountain heights 
of freedom. 

The best picture of the preacher's adaptation to his 

people is found in Goldsmith's lines : 

"A man he was of all the country dear; 
And passing rich on forty pounds a year. 



138 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



Unskilled he to fawn and seek for power 

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; 

Far other aims his heart had learned to prize; 

More bent to raise the wretched than to rise; 

But in his duty prompt at every call, 

He watched and wept and prayed and felt for all. 

And, as the bird on fond endearment tries, 

To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 

He tried each art, rebuked each dull delay, 

Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." 

III. Personality 

The third and highest condition of the preacher's success 
is personality. Your character is your capital as a 
preacher. A young teacher asked Carlyle how he might 
succeed in his profession. Carlyle wrote: "Young man, 
be that which you would have your pupils be. All other 
teaching is unblessed mockery and apery A young man 
asked Demosthenes the secret of eloquence. "Action," 
replied the orator. The young man did not clearly under- 
stand Demosthenes, and repeated the question. Again 
Demosthenes answered, "Action." A third time the young 
man asked the question. And again Demosthenes thun- 
dered, "Action." Some of the commentators have 
stumbled over Demosthenes's reply as much as did the 
young man. One exegete thinks Demosthenes meant to 
say that gesture is the secret of eloquence. Only a dancing 
master could have dreamed of such an exegesis. Demos- 
thenes had spent his years in toil for his beloved city. 
He sacrificed his fortune and at last his life itself for the 
liberty of Greece. And the word which Demosthenes used 
in reply to the young man's inquiry is the word which indi- 
cates conduct, life, action. In a word, Carlyle simply re- 
peated the direction of Demosthenes. 



THE BEST POSSIBLE PREACHER 139 



At the outbreak of the Civil War I was permitted to go 
to the county town and see the boys enlist. We desired 
to raise one company in our county that day and excite- 
ment was running high. Two prominent lawyers were 
candidates for Congress and one of these men was asked to 
address the meeting. He became very eloquent, in the 
common acceptation of that term, but the conclusion of his 
remarks was, "Go, boys, go!" In some strange way this 
speech chilled the enthusiasm of the audience and no one 
responded to the call for volunteers at the close. His rival 
was then introduced to the audience and in his paroxysms 
of eloquence he made the American eagle scream, but the 
conclusion of his speech also was, "Go, boys, go!" and 
at its close not a man responded to the summons for 
volunteers. 

At last Silas Davis, a Baptist deacon whom everybody 
in the county knew and loved, arose and said, in substance : 
"Boys, God has been good to me; he has given me three- 
score years and ten, and I offer him very little in offering 
the remnant of my life. He has given me a good home, 
good neighbors and the best country the sun ever shone 
upon, and rather than see the old flag hauled down I 
propose to go and help save the Union. Come, boys, and 
enlist with me." Mr. Davis had not reached the table 
before thirty men were on their feet, shouting : "You stay, 
Uncle Silas. We will go and save the country!" and 
inside of thirty minutes after this good man had spoken 
his word and sealed it by his signature, two companies had 
been enlisted instead of one. That speech was an illustra- 
tion of what Demosthenes meant in saying that eloquence 
is action. 

Milton was accustomed to say that every great poem is 
the lif eblood of a noble soul. Emerson said : "I know only 



140 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



that which I have lived." The reason for the immortality 
of The Pilgrim's Progress, of Goethe's Faust, of Dante's 
Inferno and of Shakespeare's poems is because these 
masterpieces are throbbing with the life of their authors. 
Buffon was accustomed to say: "The style is the man." 
Never dream, young men, that you can lift your people 
to some height of Christian experience which you have not 
already reached yourselves. Even Jesus never thought 
that he could lift people to some spiritual heights which 
he had not experienced, hence he says, "For their sakes I 
sanctify myself," and again he adds, "And I, if I be lifted 
up, will draw all men unto me." 

This openness of mind, this obedience of the will, this 
total surrender of your personality to God is the condition 
for the enduement of the Holy Spirit and that strange 
experience of power over other hearts which is sometimes 
called unction. William I. Fee is the greatest pastor 
Cincinnati Conference ever produced. He led ten thou- 
sand persons into the church and one hundred and fifty 
young men into the Christian ministry. The secret of it 
was not his eloquence, but his character. Eead the two 
remarkable volumes of Reminiscences which Dr. Fee has 
published, and also The Record of God's Dealings with His 
Servants, by George Miiller, of Bristol, along with the 
Acts of the Apostles, and you will learn the secret of the 
baptism of the Holy Spirit. 

The Head of the New Humanity 

Christ is the head of the new humanity. I can scarcely 
realize, much less describe, what you may become when 
your personality is reenforced by God. Can you imagine 
how the disciples brought out the five loaves and the two 
fishes before five thousand starving people, and offered the 



THE BEST POSSIBLE PEEACHEE 141 



lad's frugal meal half contemptuously and more than half 
despairingly, saying: "What are these among so many?" 
But they put their little all into the Saviour's hands. 
Again, can you imagine the surprise with which they saw 
these slender provisions, with the divine blessing, multiply 
and multiply and multiply, until they sufficed for the entire 
multitude, and then furnished a basketful for each separate 
disciple ? I have tried to hold up high ideals before you 
this morning. Some of you may be saying in your hearts, 
"Who is sufficient for these things ?" Possibly you are dis- 
couraged. If you bring your gift to God this morning, you 
will fling it down half contemptuously and more than half 
despairingly. But if you in perfect sincerity surrender 
your all to Christ, I can imagine the surprise and gladness 
with which you will find him later feeding churches and 
communities, and perhaps nations, through you. 

Men little dreamed a century ago of the force that in- 
hered in steam or electricity. If anyone had prophesied 
one hundred years ago that we should multiply our phys- 
ical powers a thousandfold by using the forces which are 
all around us in nature, he would have been dismissed as 
an idle dreamer. It is the glory of modern science that she 
has taught man the secret of nature and brought him to his 
kingdom. Do you suppose, young men, that there are no 
corresponding revelations of power in the spiritual world ? 
The world is awaiting its spiritual Darwins and Fultons, 
its Bells and Edisons, to reveal to it the possibilities of God 
in a human soul. The old conception of man found its 
embodiment in the Sphinx, a being half human, half 
animal. The new conception will not be an Egyptian 
Sphinx, but a being wholly human, because he is a child 
of God. Do you remember that strange prophecy of Daniel, 
in which he portrayed the kingdoms of the world, the first 



142 THE DEMAND FOE CHBIST 



one by a beast, and the second by a beast, and the third by a 
beast, and the fourth kingdom by a beast more destructive 
than all the others ; but at last Daniel catches the vision of 
the coming of one like unto the Son of man, who shall 
rule the nations of the world ? This is not a petty forecast 
of Macedon, followed by Eome, etc., but a vision of the 
continual warfare arising from our half human and half 
animal kingdoms until the advent of the Son of man. 

The secret of manhood is becoming a child of God, and 
the secret of the preacher is in the repetition of the miracle 
of the incarnation until he comes to something of the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. So let me 
close by pointing you to him. 

I can sum up all I have tried to say in two texts, and I 
give them at the close rather than at the beginning, so that 
you may remember them and catch their inspiration long 
after you have forgotten my words. Jesus is the supreme 
Teacher of the world, and he sums up his own life by 
saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the lif e." "I am the 
way"; that is his art. "I am the truth." What phil- 
osopher ever dared to make this claim of Jesus ? The most 
Plato would dream of saying is, "I know some part of the 
truth." But one secret of Christ's power is his ability to 
say, "I am the truth." "I am the life." It was not the 
truth which Christ proclaimed, nor the marvelous art with 
which he proclaimed it, but his life which was the light 
of men. It is not from the Mount of the Beatitudes, but 
from Calvary, that he redated history and reorganized 
society. How simply and marvelously he sums his whole 
life up in the text, "I am the way, the truth and the life !" 
Add to this text for your own comfort that other promise 
falling from his lips: "Ye shall receive power after that 
the Holy Ghost is come upon you." 



VIII 



THE BEENFOKCEMENT OF PEESONALITY 1 

But as many as received him, to them gave he the power to 
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his 
name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. — John 1. 12, 13. 

We find the ideal of our text stated by our Lord as the 
purpose of the Sermon on the Mount : "Let your speech be 
Yea, yea, Nay, nay," "give to him that asketh thee," "love 
your enemies," etc., "that ye may be sons of your Father in 
heaven," That sermon is indeed summed up in another 
expression a little later : "Ye, therefore, shall be perfect, as 
your heavenly Father is perfect." But this is only cloth- 
ing the same fundamental thought of realizing our sonship 
to God in another dress. The development of character, 
the perfection of the human soul, the reenforcement of 
personality is the aim not only of our text and of the 
Sermon on the Mount but of the New Testament and of 
Christ's coming to the earth. This thought will become 
clearer from a study of the elements of personality, to- 
gether with the unfolding of our text. 

We recognize the great value of the old divisions of per- 
sonality into intellect, sensibility, and will. But we do 
not regard these divisions as scientific, because the powers 
which they are intended to distinguish run into each other. 
That which differentiates human volition from mere 
animal impulse is the fact that human choice is guided by 

1 Baccalaureate Sermon, Ohio Wesleyan University, June 
18, 1899. 

143 



144 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



reason, and inspired by affection instead of being merely- 
instinctive. Hence the human will is not distinct and 
separate from the intellect and the affections. Again, 
thought and feeling blend in every act of consciousness. 
There can be no feeling until that feeling emerges in con- 
sciousness. But the moment a feeling or sensation enters 
the consciousness it is intellectual as well as emotional. 
Hence, intellect and sensibility are not distinct from each 
other. The old divisions of man into intellect, sensibility, 
and will cannot prove a final analysis of personality. 

Instead of following the a priori method and seeking 
a logical division of man, let us follow the scientific method 
and try to describe the elements of personality in the order 
in which they emerge in consciousness. The first element 
of personality which emerges in a child is its consciousness 
of freedom. This is identical with, or at least an out- 
growth of, its consciousness of self. The second stage in 
the development of personality is a child's consciousness of 
its talents and powers to meet its vocation, or at least its 
consciousness of a vocation. This seems to be an out- 
growth of one's consciousness of the external world, and 
an attempt of the soul to adapt itself to its environment. 
The third stage in the development of personality is the 
recognition of the soul's dependence or the consciousness 
of a higher power. This is identical with one's conscious- 
ness of God. The first element is that which differentiates 
you from the animals and identifies you with the human 
species. It may be called your humanity. The second 
element is that which differentiates you from all other, 
human beings, and constitutes your peculiar essence. It 
may be called your individuality. The first two elements 
are yours by birth ; the third element is the result of your 
personal choices. It is that which is realized when you 



REEXFORCEMENT OF PERSONALITY 145 



become a child of God; it is that which is added to you by 
virtue of your spiritual union with God. For lack of a 
better name we may call it your divinity. Probably the 
three divisions of personality here suggested, or at least 
the three names given, will not prove final, for we are 
breaking new ground to-day. But let us see how these 
three stages of personality seem imbedded in our text, and 
how they emerge in our personal growth. 

L Humanity 

The first element in personality is one's humanity. It 
is that which differentiates you from animals and identifies 
you with the human species. We heartily accept the 
phrase common in Methodist theology, "the new birth." 
Being born again, as used by Christ, however, does not 
seem to us to be identical with John's expression, "becom- 
ing children of God." According to John's teaching, 
being born of God and becoming a child of God are 
related, but distinct processes. The former is the birth- 
right of every human being, and it is that which con- 
stitutes his humanity. Being born of God does not 
make you a child of God, but simply gives you the 
right or power to become a child of God. Read the text 
again, omitting the intermediate clauses: "But as many 
as received him to them gave he the power to become the 
sons of God, . . . even to them . . . which were born 
... of God." The text is a paradox. If one is already 
born of God, what need has he to become the child of 
God? But John here strains language in the utterance 
of one of the profoundest truths of personality. Being 
born of God is your birthright, and constitutes you a 
human being. Becoming a child of God is your privilege ; 
but it depends upon your choice. Hence the new birth, or 



146 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



becoming a child of God, is a process distinct from the 
divine prerogative of freedom and of power to become a 
child of God, which belongs to each human being in virtue 
of its humanity. A moment's reflection will show the 
wisdom of John's distinction. 

The essence of God's character is holiness. But this 
holiness of God consists in his holy choices. Hence the 
condition of holiness even in God is freedom. It is im- 
possible, therefore, for us to inherit holiness. Holiness is 
not a birthright, it is the result of choices. To be born 
of God, therefore, is to be born not holy but with his divine 
prerogative of freedom. To become a child of God, upon 
the other hand, is to use this freedom in holy choices and 
thus to become holy. Paradoxical as John's statement 
sounds, it is profoundly true that being born of God is a 
prerequisite of becoming children of God, but does not 
guarantee a Godlike character ; that is the result of personal 
choices. 

The slight bias toward righteousness, which is inherited 
from God, and which is the birthright of every human 
soul, is seldom recognized in our lives, because it often is 
overborne by our early sins, and because it never could 
have been strong enough to make the child instinctively 
choose the right. Instinctive choice is a contradiction in 
terms. Choice by its very nature is free. The incipient 
personality with which each of us begins life does not 
imply a distinctive character in each, which makes choices 
according to a nature given to it by God. Every human 
being, at the beginning of life, is nothing but an empty 
capacity plus the power of choice. Personality is an 
achievement, not a divine gift. Humanity is God's 
original gift to man; and the essence of humanity is 
freedom. 



BEENFOECEMENT OF PEBSONALITY 147 



See how strenuously John contends that the right to 
become a child of God is a human right belonging to man 
as man. He first rejects the Jewish conception that the 
right to become children of God is the birthright of a 
peculiar race, that it belongs to the seed of Abraham. 
John says it is "not of blood." This overthrows forever 
the Pharisaic claim of the Jew, the contemptuous caste of 
the Brahman, and the parvenu aristocracy of the Anglo- 
Saxon. "Not of blood," thunders John, in answer to this 
egotistical blasphemy. 

But John is not satisfied with the rejection of caste. 
There is a more dangerous pride than the pride of race. 
There is a more discouraging skepticism than that which 
arises from being an Indian or a Negro. Many a man 
feels within him the appetites and passions which are 
dragging him down to doom. Physical science furnishes 
many facts to confirm the fear that some children lose their 
chance of salvation through the sins of ancestors. Dr. 
Brower said at the Columbus meeting of the American 
Medical Association that of the seven hundred descendants 
of a vicious woman, five hundred have become criminals. 
"The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's 
teeth are set on edge." On the other hand many a self- 
satisfied sinner feels sure of salvation without personal 
surrender because of the prayers and graces of his parents. 
Spiritual pride in one's ancestry is a peculiar danger of 
the children of ministers and of missionaries, and, I some- 
times think, of the children of our Alma Mater. It is idle 
to deny that inheritance counts for something. Through 
the sins of parents some children's feet are heavy for 
running in the paths of holiness, while through the aspira- 
tions of other parents their children seem born with incipi- 
ent wings to fly to the gates of heaven. But John, as if 



148 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



speaking to our modern world, declares that neither 
lust nor sanetification upon the part of parents can 
doom or save a soul. "Which were born/' he says, "not 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man." John 
thus declares that no sins upon the part of ancestors 
can overslaugh our personality or efface the image of 
God in us. 

This seed of personality, this element which we call our 
humanity, consists of our power of choice. Just because 
the will is spiritual rather than material it escapes analysis 
and presents the fundamental mystery of man and of 
God. But while this core of humanity cannot be classified 
under mechanical categories, we nevertheless recognize it 
in our consciousness. A materialistic conception of man 
makes an easy system of the universe. But the system is 
untrue to the facts. We can get a mechanical man only 
by abstracting the essence of every real man we meet, and 
presenting the mere shell of his nature to the materialistic 
philosopher. Consciousness is the beginning of all knowl- 
edge, of all science, of all philosophy, and the deepest fact 
of consciousness is the consciousness of moral freedom. 
The materialist can no more eliminate the consciousness 
of freedom from the human mind and have left such 
persons as you and I are than he can eliminate life from 
plants and animals and have them remain real plants and 
animals. In a word, freedom of will is as distinctive and 
essential a part of humanity as life is a characteristic of 
the vegetable and animal world. 

Since freedom is the essential element in your humanity, 
the essential condition of your growth is the exercise of this 
divine prerogative. This principle throws light upon 
some of the problems which confront our modern world. 
Doubtless the child should be intrusted with freedom 



KEENFOKCEMENT OF PEKSONALITY 149* 



earlier than is often the case. Physical compulsion should 
be well over by the time the child is five years old. Parents 
out of a timid dread of responsibility for their children 
keep them back from the exercise of freedom, and from 
a corresponding growth in manliness and womanliness. 
Parents and teachers should make a stronger effort to 
draw their young people into companionship with them- 
selves/ into partnerships in business, and thus aim to make 
them sharers of their ideals. Even if we fail in reaching 
this goal immediately, we should not insist upon mere ex- 
ternal conformity, but with friendly counsels we should 
grant increasing freedom. 

Upon the other hand we must bear in mind that the 
divine counterpart of freedom is law. God has bound the 
two together indissolubly in nature. He never forcibly 
holds back a child's hand when a little one thrusts it 
toward fire. On the other hand God never lowers the 
temperature of a flame because a child's hand is in it. 
Freedom and law are God's method of training the race. 
The method of science is guidance by experience. The 
principle of science is the law of cause and effect. The 
contribution of science to modern thought is the doctrine 
that we are in the universe of laws. Science is just now 
abreast of the Old Testament, and each generation and 
individual needs the discipline of the law before entering 
upon the dispensation of the gospel. The danger which 
threatens modern society arises from the denial of one of 
these two elements in our dealing with the young. The 
timid and conservative are afraid of freedom and try in 
every way to restrict it. The reckless in the use of free- 
dom are the cowards in their dread of penalties. They 
are dupes of the tempter's promise that they can sow with- 
out reaping, that they can eat the forbidden fruit without 



150 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



death. The remedy for the present ills in college and in 
society is more freedom in sowing and more certainty in 
reaping. Columbia University never calls a student for an 
absence from class or a failure in examination, but silently 
keeps the record. In the Medical Department alone, this 
spring, the names of twenty seniors and of forty freshmen 
were posted on the bulletin board, the week before Com- 
mencement, with the notice that they had failed to pass, 
and this was the first intimation many of them ever had 
received that their work was unsatisfactory. The Columbia 
professors maintain that society will not take the trouble 
to warn and rebuke young physicians for a neglect of their 
profession, but will silently pass them by, and that it is a 
kindness in the end to allow young men to meet the conse- 
quences of their neglect during their professional training. 
Perhaps such a course is too simple and silent and severe, 
with too much of nature and too little of motherhood in it, 
but I should rejoice to see this college lifting its students 
more and more out of the stage of childhood, and advanc- 
ing them toward the goal of absolute freedom upon the one 
side and of invariable consequences upon the other. Were 
we to abolish every rule, and then keep records of actions 
and omissions which lower the standard of scholarship and 
manhood, and simply notify students as rapidly as they 
fall below the privileges of the university, we should deci- 
mate our number but educate the remnant. Through the 
sentimentalism of modern society and the maudlin mercy 
of the modern church our failure to set up restrictions 
would be characterized as indifference to the moral welfare 
of students, and our firmness in leaving penalties to follow 
sins would be called cruelty. But I am more and more 
convinced that a college conducted more nearly upon the 
divine principle of freedom and law, while displaying 



KEENFORCEMENT OF PERSONALITY 151 



some of the harshness, would possess much of the vitality 
of nature. 

In politics also we have such aristocrats as George III, 
Pius IX, and Jefferson Davis ; such moralists as Benjamin 
Kidd, and such "practical statesmen" as Piatt and Quay, 
who insist that God ordained bosses and popes, white men 
and Anglo-Saxons to rule the world. Some even hold that 
God has restricted freedom not only on the ground of color, 
race, and religion, but even on the ground of sex. This 
is an illustration not of vicious thinking, but of the 
absence of thinking. More logical and consistent than 
these partial views is the materialistic philosophy which 
denies the moral freedom of all men. Strange how the old 
errors of caste, which have been trampled under foot by 
the modern world in every step of progress, crop up again 
in these closing days of the century. Southern leaders 
ought indeed to exclude from the suffrage the ignorant 
and the criminal, white and black. But to disfranchise a 
race on the ground that the black man is ordained for 
political servitude is to blaspheme the Maker of men. So, 
again, in dealing with our brethren in the tropics, I believe 
in American responsibility for the trust providentially 
committed to our care, and in the main heartily indorse 
President McKinley in dealing with the Filipinos. But 
instead of hesitancy and vague generalities, the President 
and Congress should have assured the Filipinos months 
ago that our highest desire for them is that they shall 
become an orderly and righteous, a free and united people. 
As rapidly as they can maintain even an imperfect order 
in any island, we should cease to impose upon that island 
justice from without. We should even be broad enough to 
recognize that the Filipinos have a right to their mistakes, 
and we should be patient with them, even if they repeat 



152 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



some of the blunders and crimes which we committed on 
our way to freedom. We, who banished Quakers and hung 
witches, we, who are exterminating the Indians and still 
burning Negroes, ought not to be too exacting in the 
standard of external order which we set up for a half- 
civilized people. England too must grant her Indian 
subjects a more rapid extension of freedom, and an in- 
creasing measure of home rule if she is to avoid the blunder 
of an American revolution in the Indian empire. 

God is the supreme radical. He gives every human 
being the fateful boon of freedom, and puts us all under an 
invariable system of laws. He forces even little children 
to choose between right and wrong, and to take the conse- 
quences. He puts infinite responsibilities upon us because 
he sees infinite possibilities before us, and because he knows 
that there is no path to Godlikeness save the stony path 
of freedom and of law. 

II. Individuality 

We have already seen that moral freedom belongs to you 
as a member of the human race. It distinguishes man 
from the animal ; it constitutes your humanity. But being 
born of God involves something more than the divine pre- 
rogative of freedom. It carries with it not only a race 
quality but a personal inheritance. It not only accounts 
for your humanity; it is the key to your individuality. 
Humanity differentiates you from the animals and identi- 
fies you with the human species. Individuality differenti- 
ates you from every other member of the human race, and 
furnishes materials for your personality. 

What is the origin of your individuality? It is doubt- 
less due in part to your inheritance and to your environ- 
ment and education. But when we seek for the final 



REENFORCEMENT OF PERSONALITY 153 



explanation of these proximate causes of your peculiarities 
we are driven back to the Divine Providence. It is doubt- 
less due to Him who "fixed the bounds and determined the 
habitations of men" that you were born in America in the 
nineteenth century, rather than in an African kraal in the 
eighteenth or thirteenth century. 

Besides, ancestry and environment do not furnish a 
complete explanation of individuality. There is still an 
unknown X to be resolved — a unique factor to be accounted 
for. Twins, nurtured in the same home and going to the 
same school, nevertheless differ radically. A more striking 
illustration of the unknown X in individuality is found 
in such men as Lincoln and Shakespeare, Dante and 
Augustine, and, above all, in Jesus Christ. Renan's at- 
tempt to explain J esus on the grounds of race and country 
is a signal failure. Inasmuch as ninety per cent of the 
scientists are theists, and go back to God as the original 
source of all life, why not have recourse to this unex- 
hausted power to explain the existing X ? It is vastly 
more reasonable and scientific, having posited a God, to 
believe in his divine immanence, to recognize his presence 
and activity in the world, than to place him upon a shelf 
among the fossils as an exhausted factor in the universe. 
"Born of God" implies not simply that God made you a 
member of the human species and, accordingly, gave you 
freedom; it implies that God put the stamp of individu- 
ality upon you, that your life was planned before your 
creation, just as Christ was a Lamb slain from before the 
foundation of the world, and that God has given you 
special talents for the fulfillment of your calling. Just 
as "conceived by the Holy Ghost" is the key to Christ's 
nature, so "born of God" is the key to your individuality. 

I shall never forget one of Horace Bushnell's sermons on 



154 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



"Every Man's Life a Plan of .God." The very title causes 
the blood of young people to leap in their veins. The most 
inspiring and comforting thought that comes to me in 
connection with your future arises from the conviction 
that each one of your lives has been planned by God, and 
that if you accept the divine plan, each one of your 
struggles will yet end in eternal victory. There is much 
restlessness and indecision among you to-day. I never 
knew so large a proportion of a graduating class without 
definite plans for the future, or even for the coming year. 
The avenues of life never seemed so crowded as they are 
to-day. I can readily understand the increasing sense of 
responsibility with which you will turn from our portals 
next Wednesday, and enter a world where every road is 
cTowded, where multitudes are seething with discontent, 
and where the vast majority of your competitors will 
struggle selfishly. It is sheer folly for friends to assure 
you that the world is looking eagerly for your coming, and 
that you can choose any plan of life and succeed. It is 
indeed true that your outward work is of little importance 
compared with the spirit with which you do your work. 
But if your spirit is right, you will discover the path of life. 
That Divine Providence which watches the sparrows fall 
and numbers the hairs of your head did not bring you 
into this world and launch you upon an eternal career 
without a plan of life; and you cannot win your highest 
success with any other plan than that which God made for 
you. Prayer will not lead God to change his original plan 
of your career any more than the cries of Christ in 
Gethsemane led God to remove the bitter cup from the 
Redeemer's lips, because your original calling is best for 
you, as the original plan of redemption was best for the 
Saviour of the world. You may indeed cry out, as did 



REENFORCEMENT OP PERSONALITY 155 



Jeremiah of old, "He hath hedged me about that I cannot 
get out ; ... he hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone." 
But your necessity is God's opportunity. In the path 
marked out for you God walks before, and in the rear, and 
on either side. The same stony walls which hedge you in 
serve as an impregnable defense against external foes. 
Walking along this chosen path you shall no more miss 
your kingdom than when turning into the family yard next 
Thursday, and walking down the path which your earthly 
father laid out, you can miss the dear old homestead or 
your mother's welcome. 

But, you ask, "How can I find my providential work ?" 
By obedience to your inner call, by moving out upon the 
lines of your tastes and of your powers, by the advice of 
your sanest and most conscientious friends, by the experi- 
ments which you will be forced to make during the next 
few months. Above all, if you will unselfishly lay aside 
your own will and try simply to learn your duties rather 
than to enjoy your privileges, and seek the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit, you shall infallibly find your work. God's 
willingness to guide you to your tasks is guaranteed in the 
very fact that he has created you for these tasks. Your 
path probably will lead through a wilderness of tempta- 
tions and a Garden of Gethsemane. It is possible that a 
dim consciousness of this fact has kept some of you, who 
are in the dark this morning, from perfect surrender and 
from clear light on the path of duty. Infallible guidance 
is yours if you pay the price of it. 

With or without guidance you must move on. As the 
eagle tears the nest of the fledglings to pieces when the 
time for flying has come, so God is pushing you out of 
your temporary resting place, not that you may fall help- 
less to the ground, but that you may spread your wings and 



156 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



soar above the clouds and rest in your native air. There 
is no more responsibility and care before you than you 
already have faced. All the responsibility which any soul 
is forced to take is the responsibility of making right 
choices, and that responsibility has been on you from your 
childhood. Indeed, if the generic choice of your soul is 
God's will, your responsibilities will grow less as your 
duties multiply. The statements of those who say that 
youth and college days are the happiest periods of life is 
the testimony of persons who have sinned and are reaping 
the consequences of their sins. You may look forward to 
greater activities, but I do not think, young people, that 
your burdens will be any heavier in the future than they 
already have been. On the contrary, there is a finer courage, 
a stronger confidence, and a deeper sense of rest as the 
victor draws near the goal. 0, there is rest in action ; not 
the rest of the night-hawk sleeping in the dirt, but the rest 
of the eagle as he pauses in his sunward flight; not the 
rest of the poor cripple as he lies idly upon his bed, but the 
rest of the strong-limbed, fleet-footed boy as he goes hurry- 
ing about his play; not the rest of still pools gathering 
slime and poison from inaction, but the rest of the moun- 
tain brooks as they go dancing to the sea; the rest of the 
stars which seem to us so still and motionless, yet nightly 
swing through infinite spaces on their heavenly way. 

Your individuality accounts largely for your loneliness. 
God made no other soul just like you in the universe. 
There can be no greater character without responsibility. 
Each of you must act for yourself. The curse of our 
modern life is that we live in cities, read the daily papers, 
play at thinking in herds. Love is often a weak desire to 
lose one's responsibility in another. Your choices must be 
in some measure original. You cannot childishly follow 



REENFORCEMENT OF PERSONALITY 157 



in any other's path, because God made no other soul just 
like you. Do not expect too much of your friends, nor 
pour out your heart to strangers. Let me whisper a 
secret in your ears : the world does not want to hear of your 
trials; it wants to feel your strength. That man will be 
most cherished in any community who is least voluble in 
telling his woes, and most patient and sympathetic in 
hearing the sorrows of others. Men pay you the highest 
and sincerest compliment when they unload their burdens 
upon you and ask not about your sorrows in return. The 
measure of greatness is the capacity to serve. Human love 
is an attempt to overcome the heart's loneliness, and it 
seldom succeeds. Do you suppose that Dante, or Michel- 
angelo, or Saint John found full satisfaction in the petty 
life of the neighborhood in which each spent his days? 
Nay, do you suppose that Dante could have lost his indi- 
viduality in Beatrice, or Michelangelo in Yittoria Colonna, 
or John in Mary, the sister of Lazarus? God made our 
souls like stars, to sit solitary in the heavens, influenced in- 
deed by each other, but with impassable gulfs between us. 
Every soul is born alone. Every soul is alone in temptation. 
Every sin is a solitary sin, depending for its degree, and 
even for its existence, upon the state of the individual 
before God, and not upon the companions who join it in 
the outward act. Every soul is forgiven, if forgiven at 
all, alone on the ground of its personal penitence and faith. 
Every soul at last goes through the valley of the shadow 
of death alone, unless it finds the Divine Companion. Do 
not cherish too great expectation of your friends, as if they 
could satisfy you. The prophet must find companionship 
with God. The soul was made for God, and can find rest 
only in him. 

The victor at the Olympiads received a laurel wreath. 



158 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



After the victor had run race after race, and won wreath 
after wreath, he at last was relieved from further contests, 
and received a white stone with the name under which he 
had struggled for the prizes carved upon it. This stone 
made him the guest of the city which engaged to supply all 
his wants for the remainder of his life. So John tells us 
that the victor in the Christian life shall receive a white 
stone, and "on the stone a new name written which no 
man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." This name is 
not your old name, for your friends already know that. 
It is not the name of Christ, for all heaven knows that. 
What, then, can it be ? Think a moment of the qualities 
which constitute your individuality. Each one of you has 
a personal ideal. The world knows not your aspirations, 
and possibly mocks at your puny efforts. Just as men 
catch only broken, dancing pictures of the moon upon the 
sea when winds are blowing, so your friends catch only 
broken, dancing pictures of your ideal on the stormy sea of 
life. But presently the troubled sea of life will be at rest, 
and then men shall see the perfect image. The new name 
which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it is your ideal 
realized. So far from your individuality being lost, even 
in God, John dares to speak as if Christ lost himself in you. 
He speaks of your soul receiving God, not of God receiving 
you. But this brings us to our third division. 

III. Divinity 

We have thus far found two elements entering into 
personality. The first element is humanity, which differ- 
entiates you from the animals and identifies you with the 
human species. The mark of humanity is freedom. The 
second element is your individuality. It is this which 
differentiates you from every other human being and 



REENFOKCEMENT OF PERSONALITY 159 



constitutes your peculiar qualities. The marks of indi- 
viduality are the peculiar talents of intellect and sensibility 
with which God has endowed you. The third element of 
personality is your divinity. I use this word with hesita- 
tion because it does not quite express my meaning. Never- 
theless, it is the best word which I can find. Jesus had no 
hesitancy in calling us children of God ; in teaching us to 
call God our Father; in declaring that the Scripture in 
calling those persons gods to whom the word of God came 
could not be broken. I am sure that we regard the coming 
of God into the human soul as a fleeting possession, 
whereas the Holy Spirit may become a permanent endow- 
ment of human nature. Any scientific construction of the 
doctrine that man is a free being, any clear recognition 
that character is the highest part of personality, and that 
personality is an achievement and not an endowment, 
must recognize that our natural birth is only a half birth, 
that it is not in the proper sense the birth of the soul at 
all, that generation must be completed by regeneration and 
sanctification, that the New Testament reveals a new 
humanity. The New Testament is the farthest removed 
from pantheism. It does not teach that you are to be lost 
in God, but upon the contrary the New Testament strains 
language in its attempt to tell how God is to be incarnated 
in you. It is at this point that we may expect the reen- 
forcement of personality. 

John sums up this peculiar privilege in the phrase 
"becoming children of God." He mentions two methods 
by which this is to be achieved, namely, "believing on His 
name" and "receiving Him." John sometimes sums up 
the methods of becoming a child of God by the one word 
"faith." There is not a single case, however, recorded in 
the New Testament in which one becomes a child of God 



160 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



or receives the special gift of the Holy Spirit without the 
use of prayer. Hence, faith and prayer are probably 
synonymous with "believing on his name" and "receiving 
him." Let us see if we can understand what John means 
by these terms. 

Faith is spoken of as the substance of things hoped for, 
as the evidence of things not seen. Moses is said to have 
endured by faith, that is, by seeing Him who is invisible. 
In a word, "faith," or "believing on his name," is such a 
vision of spiritual realities as leads the soul to let go of this 
world and lay hold of God. Faith is the bridge by which 
the soul crosses from its finite to its infinite possessions. 
God starts our souls on their eternal careers in this world. 
We are first rooted in the earth through our senses. But 
we are like trees sown in the nursery or seeds sown in the 
hothouse. No large growth is possible unless we can stand 
transplanting. Our danger comes from the domination 
of the senses and the failure of faith. The purpose of 
God that you shall use the world as your starting point, 
tut presently root yourself in eternal realities, shows the 
folly of worldliness. The world is a good nursery for 
souls, but a poor orchard. It is a camping place, but not 
a home. Lyman Abbott says: "It is a universal law of 
life that the lower serve the higher. It is only in the 
process of death that the higher sinks back into the lower. 
The organic world uses the materials of the inorganic in 
huilding up its structures. The elements of the mineral 
kingdom are turned into vegetables. The ox eats grass, 
and the grass becomes ox, not the ox grass." The world- 
ling says, "The world is mine, and I am determined to 
possess it." "Yes," says Paul, "all things are yours, 
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life or 
death, or things present or things to come — all are yours." 



EEENFOBCEMENT-OF PEBSONALITY 161 



But the chief end of man is to form his character, to 
achieve his personality; hence, the world must build up 
manhood, not manhood sink into worldliness. To estimate 
what a man is worth by the dollars with which he is in- 
trusted is to turn the standard of living upside down. 
Money is to be turned into manhood, not manhood into 
money. The submerging of the spiritual in the material 
is as clear proof of death as the sinking of the vegetable 
back into the mineral kingdom. If we had a true phil- 
osophy of love on the one side and of selfishness upon the 
other, we should know the arts of building up and of 
destroying personality. I do not know why it is so, but in 
serving self the soul deceives itself and becomes a slave of 
the devil. In serving God, if I may use the phrase, the 
soul conquers God and makes its own character Godlike. 
The philosophy of love once mastered and applied, the race 
will achieve the new humanity. 

The necessity for you to live by faith explains the dis- 
cipline of life. God cuts off the material and the temporal 
that we may live in the spiritual and the eternal. A few 
years ago he separated you from the old home and the 
childhood friends, not only that you might enlarge your 
vision and broaden your friendships, but that you might 
cultivate his presence. He will soon thrust you out of our 
portals that you may learn to substitute the closet for the 
classroom, prayer for the tete-^-tete, the citizenship of 
heaven for the companionship of youth. God is saying 
to every human soul, through the inevitable loss of friends, 
through the gradual closing of the doorways of the senses, 
and at last through the dissolution of the body, "Come 
unto me or perish." 0, it will be pitiful to see you fifty 
years hence tottering down to the grave with no hold upon 
the spiritual world, and even in doubt of the existence of 



162 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



such a world. It will be glorious fifty years hence to see 
you, not tottering down to the grave, but marching up to 
the New Jerusalem to the music of the angels, and with the 
towers of the heavenly city bursting upon your vision. 

But what does John mean by prayer and by receiving 
Christ ? He means something more than letting go of this 
world. They relate to that supreme act of the will by 
which the soul empties itself of self, and opens itself to 
God. It involves a stretching of our finite capacities until 
our souls can be "filled with all the fullness of God." Our 
prayers are usually short and easy, and our struggles long 
and hard. This is because we reverse the divine method. 
Even Jacob could give many of us a lesson in praying. 
His wrestling with God until his hip was out of joint and 
the tendons shrank indicates the complete crippling and 
final decay of Jacob's greedy, grasping, worldly nature 
through that long night of wrestling with the angel of the 
Lord. Again, Christ teaches us how to pray. In that 
desperate struggle in the wilderness he fought out, once 
for all, the battle between absolute obedience to God on the 
one side, and a self -centered life upon the other side. The 
transformation of the baptism by the Spirit into a perma- 
nent part of Christ's divinity could not take place without 
the settlement of this question. The strongest proof of the 
strength of Christ's humanity or will-power is shown in 
the fact that this question never was raised again. His 
own account of his last struggle with the devil is summed 
up in the phrase "Satan cometh and findeth nothing in 
me." Upon the other hand the weakness of our person- 
ality is seen in nothing more clearly than in the fact that 
after our conversion, and even after we have dreamed of 
sanctification, our lives become self-centered again. We 
again beg God to change his plans for us, whereas Christ's 



KEENFOKCEMENT OF PEKSONALITY 163 



prayer ended with the phrase "Not my will, but thine be 
done." Eeceiving Christ is the supreme act of your 
humanity, and it is the beginning of the creation of your 
personality. Christ's battles always were fought and won 
within his own soul, and he was always victor in the 
world. We, on the contrary, enter the battles of life with 
our souls half girded, and we suffer constant defeat. One 
night Jesus sent his disciples across the lake in a boat, 
and spent most of the night wrestling with God upon the 
mountain. Toward morning, when the storm broke upon 
the disciples, Jesus walked so calmly across the rolling 
billows that the sea caught his majestic peace without even 
the word of command. Before the resurrection of Lazarus, 
Jesus' spiritual state was so tense that it is described by 
the phrase "groaning in spirit," and the Greek word indi- 
cates intense turmoil, and even anger. But a few minutes 
later he is comforting the sisters and speaking the word 
which even the dead man heard. So Christ agonized in 
the garden until he sweat drops of blood. A little later 
he faced Pilate and rejection by his nation with peaceful 
silence, and met the torments of his crucifiers pounding 
nails through his hands and feet with the murmur: 
"Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." 
His last prayer for himself on the cross is so heartrending 
that exegesis stands amazed, and has never sounded the 
depths of "Why hast thou forsaken me?" But a little 
later Christ faced death and hell with their awful terrors 
by committing his soul to God as trustfully as a child falls 
to sleep in its mother's arms. The inward struggle is the 
key to the outward victories. Prayer is the secret of the 
inflowing of God; but it is a secret which most of us have 
not yet learned. It is soul travail. It is the finite stretch- 
ing itself to its infinite capacities. It is such an emptying 



164 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



of the soul of self that God flows in as naturally as air 
flows into a vacuum. 

I cannot portray the New Humanity. I can scarcely 
realize, much less describe, what you will become when 
your personality is reenforced by God. Can you imagine 
how the disciples brought out the five loaves and the two 
fishes before five thousand starving people and offered 
their frugal meal half -jokingly, half -contemptuously, and 
more than half -despairingly ? But they put their little 
all into the Saviour's hands. Can you imagine the surprise 
and gladness with which they saw their meager stores, after 
passing through the Saviour's hand and receiving the 
divine blessing, multiplying and multiplying and multiply- 
ing until they sufficed for the entire multitude, and then 
furnished a basketful for each separate disciple ? Some of 
you are discouraged. If you bring your gifts to God this 
morning, it will be half -jokingly, half -contemptuously, more 
than half -despairingly. But if you put your tiny posses- 
sions into the Saviour's hands, I can imagine the surprise 
and gladness with which you will witness Christ multiply- 
ing your offerings and feeding the nations through you. 

Men little dreamed a century ago of the force that in- 
heres in steam or electricity or air. If anyone had 
prophesied one hundred years ago that we should multiply 
our physical powers a thousandfold, nay, ten thousandfold, 
by using forces which are all around us in nature, he would 
have been dismissed as an idle dreamer. It is the glory 
of modern science that she has shown man his kingdom 
and taught him the secret of nature. Do you suppose, 
young people, that there are no corresponding revelations 
of power in the spiritual world ? The world is awaiting its 
spiritual Darwins and Fultons, its Bells and Edisons, to 
reveal to it the possibilities of God in a human soul. The 



KEENFORCEMENT OF PERSONALITY 165 



triumphs of such simple men as Spurgeon and Muller and 
Moody, as St. Francis and Peter the Hermit, show the 
infinitude of the divine resources when men once learn to 
tap them. You have all seen the picture of the sphinx, 
and some of you have looked upon that strange, mysterious 
figure, half-lion and half-woman. That woman-lion, 
sitting upon the Egyptian sands, is the old conception of 
humanity. The new conception is not yet molded. It is 
easier to write a "Paradise Lost" than a "Paradise Re- 
gained." Shakespeare can give us a Caliban, Stevenson a 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Hawthorne a Marble Faun ; 
but when even Saint John attempts to describe a citizen of 
heaven he falls into the absurd travesty of picturing a man 
with wings or other animal appendages. We repeat, the 
new conception of man is not yet imaged. But the new 
man will be not an Egyptian sphinx, half -human, half- 
animal, but a divine image, half-man, half-God. The 
gods of the heathen world were all men and women ; I am 
sure that the men and women of the millennial age all will 
be divine. 

Members of the graduating class, we have tried in the 
first place to emphasize your freedom and your possibilities. 
The will is the man. It is in volition that your whole 
personality acts. In making man, God pauses when the 
material and the possibilities are before you and waits for 
your cooperation. God cannot make man. You must be- 
come children of God. Do not dream longer of throwing 
responsibility upon your parents or your teachers. Nay, 
do not hope that you may come so close to God as to enable 
you to throw your responsibilities wholly upon him. Pan- 
theism — the ultimate sinking of your personality in the 
Divine — is a coward's dream which never shall be realized. 
For good or ill you must make your own choices, form your 



166 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



own cnaracters, meet your own destinies for time and 
eternity. 

We have tried, in the second place, to show that each 
one of your lives is planned by God, and that he has 
granted you peculiar intellectual and emotional endow- 
ments for the fulfilling of that plan. The conviction that 
ministers are called by God is profoundly true, but it is 
not the whole truth. The minister's inspiration may be 
your comfort also. Each of you has a plan of life fresh 
from the mind of your Creator and heavenly Father. 
Listen to God and obey such intimations of duty as you 
hear day by day and you shall not miss the way. If you 
accept your providential tasks, you shall find your lives, 
however humble in the sight of men, shining out on the 
Day of Judgment in the sight of God, and the assembled 
world shot through and through with the splendor of the 
divine plan, and radiant with the glory of an ideal realized. 

We have tried, in the third place, to show your organic 
union with God. You are yet only half born. If I may 
use the expression, conscience is the umbilical cord which 
connects your soul with God. First, be conscientious ; 
second, be conscientious; third, be conscientious; not 
simply or primarily for the sake of the world, but because 
conscientiousness is essential to your very life. Obedience 
enlarges the cord which connects the finite with the 
Infinite, and lets the divine life flow in. You remember 
that Paul had some thorn in the flesh, and he asked God 
that it might be removed ? God's reply was : "My grace is 
sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in 
weakness/' Paul's physical infirmities drove him to God; 
and there was substituted for the apostle's defective eye- 
sight the divine guidance. The Infinite replaced the 
finite. Do you see how power was made perfect in weak- 



REEXFORCEMEXT OF PERSOXALITY 167 

ness? The secret of the universe is the art of adding to 
your humanity and individuality divinity. Mathemati- 
cally, H plus I must be less than H plus I plus D. Besides, 
in this case, the H and the I, that is, humanity and indi- 
viduality, are only finite factors, while the D, or divinity, 
is the infinite factor. I can only pray that all your joys 
and sorrows, that your successes and your hardships may 
help you to change the formula of your lives from H plus I 
to H plus I plus D. The secret of manhood is becoming a 
child of God. 



IX 



CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 1 
Go on unto perfection. — Heb. 6. 1. 

Ouk text sounds the summons to Christian idealism, not 
the idealism of Saint Anthony, but the idealism of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. We do not wish you to abandon the count- 
ing room for the cloister, the hustings for the pulpit. 
On the contrary, we are determined that our idealism shall 
embrace every legitimate business and outlaw every il- 
legitimate one, that it shall cleanse all trades and profes- 
sions of their evils and consecrate them to the service of 
the race. We do not demand that you shall forsake 
America for foreign fields, unless God honors you with 
a call; but we pray that you may be everlastingly discon- 
tented with the low ideals of American citizenship — with 
mere money-making and officeholding. We summon you 
to wage an unceasing warfare against the spoils of 
municipal politics, against worldly standards of business 
and society, against all sordid and sensual and selfish ambi- 
tions. America's work for the twentieth century is to in- 
augurate the next stage in the evolution of man from 
animalhood to angelhood, to bring in the kingdom of 
heaven upon earth. Tennyson catches the vision of our 
possibilities, though he places the consummation too far 
away. 

1 Baccalaureate Sermon, Ohio Wesleyan University, June 
13, 1901. 

168 



CHKISTIAN IDEALISM 169 



"Red of the dawn! 
Is it turning a fainter red? So be it, but when shall we lay 
The ghost of the brute that is walking and haunting us yet and 
be free? 

In a hundred thousand winters? Ah, what will our children 
be— 

The men of a hundred thousand, a million summers away." 

L Meaning of Christian Idealism 

All choice implies at least two possible courses. No 
moral activity is possible where only a single course is 
open to the soul. Idealism is the choosing of the higher 
of the alternatives presented. If more than two courses 
are open to the will, idealism is the choice of the highest 
possible course. Our knowledge and our powers are be- 
yond our conduct. Idealism is the closing of the chasm 
between the good which is possible of realization and one's 
daily life. 

Perhaps we can put the truth in another form. We all 
have our heroes and heroines whose actions in all possible 
circumstances we love to picture in our imagination. 
Divest this hero of all supernatural wisdom and miraculous 
power, and then do what your imagination demands that 
your hero should do. This will save you from convention- 
alism — the first barrier to noble living. It is the function 
of heroes to set higher standards instead of conforming to 
low ones. Better still, Christian idealism is doing day by 
day what you think Christ would do were he in your place. 
This formula will not furnish you an unfailing guide, for 
Christ did not enter business or politics or family life. 
But this rule will furnish you the standard by which to 
measure your motives and gradually to transform your 
character. "But we all with open face beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same 



170 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the 
Lord." We suggest another rule: act as in the Day of 
Judgment you shall wish that you had acted. Live as a 
citizen of heaven. Cultivate the presence of God in your 
daily life. Emerson writes: "Only as we forsake all 
personal and temporal aims do we rise into the region of 
the universal and the eternal." The idealist walks the 
earth not after the law of a carnal commandment, but by 
the power of an endless life. 

We commonly associate the ideal with something that 
is afar off and impracticable. But by Christian idealism 
we mean simply the highest course open to you now and 
here. The shooting of human beings, and especially of 
one's friends, seems far removed from any sort of idealism. 
Yet we are told that had the Boxers captured the legation 
headquarters, the foreign ministers and missionaries would 
have shot their wives and daughters before the heathen 
hordes could have poured down upon them and wreaked 
their vengeance in unspeakable brutalities. Nor are we 
prepared to say that such action in the conditions confront- 
ing the besieged would not have been in accordance with 
the highest chivalry. 

Christian idealism demands that you choose the highest 
good possible to-day, without waiting for the absolute 
good to arrive. Indeed, the only way that the highest good 
can arrive is by our choice of the higher good to-day as 
over against the lower good. 

The chief means which the devil has used thus far to 
keep Christians from pressing on unto perfection is the 
plea that we cannot live ideal lives in our present coarse 
conditions. A woman sends word that she now thinks she 
has made a mistake in marriage; what can she do? A 
man writes that he was called to the ministry and un- 



CHEISTIAN IDEALISM 171 



fortunately was swallowed, not by a whale which could 
not stomach him, but by a farm; what could he do? A 
minister writes that he is now sure he ought to have gone 
to college, but he is nearly forty and has a family; what 
shall he do? The fundamental mistake is that these 
people did not begin using common sense, consulting God 
and following their consciences earlier. But if past 
blunders or sins can save men from the present summons 
to ideal living, all of us are excused; and Christ never 
should have called us to follow in his footsteps, for all 
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But 
recognizing your unideal condition, and even your past 
sins, we still summon you, not to absolute but to relative 
idealism, to the best course which in the sight of God is 
now open to you. 

We recognize the danger of this position. The moment 
we begin to talk of what is practical in business or politics, 
all the devils of compromise will be at our elbows suggest- 
ing a lower good as the only practical course; and the 
chief devil will clothe himself as an angel of light and 
call down to us apparently from above, "Do not make any 
choice, for the absolute good is not yet in reach." Despite 
all these devils' solicitations, Christian idealism demands 
that each man choose what seems to him to be the highest 
good, and embody that here and now. 

Just here is the error of reformers. Their idealism has 
height but not breadth. We Prohibitionists summon each 
man to vote according to his convictions in the sight of 
God and to leave the result with him. That is political 
idealism. Every man ought to vote according to his 
convictions in the sight of God. But our judgments will 
not always coincide. We must recognize the equal right 
of every other man to select the issue which best embodies 



172 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



his convictions. The Prohibitionists, at least, ought not 
to reject the wider vision and the broader charity. With 
a growth in common sense, which is the most hopeful sign 
in modern reform, we adopted in the last campaign the 
sanest principle yet embodied in a Prohibition platform, 
and declared for only one issue. We refused to express our 
convictions on the currency, or on expansion, or on woman 
suffrage, or on any other question which might divide us 
or lose us votes. But after I have consented for the sake 
of votes to abandon the embodiment of my political con- 
victions on every issue save one, how can I denounce my 
Eepublican or Democratic acquaintance as a hypocrite 
because he consents in his political action to abandon all 
his convictions save two or three ? To compel men, what- 
ever their judgment on the issues, to accept my platform 
on pain of being pilloried as hypocrites, turns the reformer 
into an intellectual despot, a political Don Quixote — a 
crazy Quaker saying to his wife, "Betsy, all the world is 
mad save thee and me ; and I sometimes think thou art a 
little daft." God is determined to establish the moral 
order among and by free men. Eespecting freedom he 
travails in pain while his children wallow in the mire 
of dirty politics. Nevertheless, he chooses the best men in 
sight and throws the Divine Providence ( on the side of a 
David or a Cyrus, a Cromwell, a Bismarck, or a Lincoln, 
no one of whom has yet been admitted to the calendar of 
sainthood. It is not required that a Prohibitionist is 
better than God. It is quite sufficient if he have God's 
boundless breadth along with his infinite height. 

To sum up : you cannot excuse yourself from the claims 
of idealism on the ground that you are not a reformer or a 
minister. If you have any moral right to be a Eepublican 
or a Democrat, if God calls you to be a lawyer or a business 



CHEISTIAN IDEALISM 



173 



man instead of a minister, then you are what you are, and 
where you are through obedience to your ideal ; and ideal- 
ism summons you to be loyal to your conscience in every 
step of life's journey. I know the danger which may 
follow the admissions made above. Compromisers will 
take advantage of any admission that their motives may be 
pure. But, surely, idealism does not demand that the 
prophet deny the truth and utter a little falsehood in the 
interests of the Kingdom ! 

Besides, every man weighs himself by the ideals which 
he chooses. A young business man said to me once : "You 
know nothing about business; I tell you all men lie and 
cheat. They must do so in order to maintain their busi- 
ness," 

I replied instinctively: "What crime have you com- 
mitted, that you now see crooked ?" 

He colored and stammered, and denied that personally 
he had committed a crime. But it was shown a few weeks 
later that at the very time this young man was slandering 
his business associates he himself was guilty of forgery. 
Tell me your ideals, and I need no prophet's vision to read 
your character. Bear in mind, therefore, that Christian 
idealism is an ever-present aim, that it demands your 
choice now and here of the highest good in sight, of the 
higher of the alternatives before you, and not verbal loyalty 
so some far-off absolute ideal, while the will is traitor to 
the duty which confronts it. 

We have been trying to show that Christian idealism is 
an ever-present aim. For the sake of emphasis, let us 
expand the proposition and say that it is an all-embracing 
aim. Another note of the Kingdom is its universality. 
Owing to the difficulty of taking the world for Christ the 
saints early betook themselves to the monasteries. Their 



174 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



desire was natural. Most of us have felt the enthusiasm 
of a revival service, the quiet peace of a prayer meeting, 
the strength which comes from secret communion, when 
the passions are stilled in the presence of God. It is 
proper and wise for us to reenforce our personality by 
Bible study and secret prayer and public worship and 
special services. The more faithfully we use these means 
the more likely are we to realize our ideal. But these 
means are good only as they help to bring in the kingdom 
of heaven upon earth. They are bad when they serve as a 
substitute for that. 

Christian idealism embraces all men, all faiths, all 
churches. "The world for Christ in this generation" is 
the motto of the Forward movement. This ideal cannot 
be realized unless Christians learn wisdom from the world 
and organize a trust of goodness. Church federation aims 
not at the abolition of Methodism or Congregationalism 
any more than the organization of the state tends to the 
destruction of the home. Church federation simply sinks 
denominational pride in the larger interests of the King- 
dom. It seeks, in the language of John Wesley, "A league 
offense and defensive with every soldier of Jesus Christ." 

Christian idealism demands not only the glorification 
of our souls but the sanctification of our bodies, transform- 
ing them into temples of the Holy Spirit. It includes our 
business as well as our devotion, our week-days as well as 
our Sundays, power for the activities of life as well as 
dying unction. Religion is for the primary as well as for 
prayer meeting, for the Marthas as well as the Marys. It 
finds God in nature as well as in the Bible. Perhaps the 
root of idealism and the highest test of its presence in the 
soul is the control of the thoughts. "Casting down im- 
aginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself 



CHEISTIAN IDEALISM 



175 



against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity 
every thought to the obedience of Christ." 

We have been trying to show that Christian idealism 
embraces the whole of life, and demands immediate realiza- 
tion. Let us not fall into the opposite error of supposing 
that our ideal is limited to a definite moral task which 
can be achieved once for all. Contradictory as the state- 
ments sound, yet the truth can be expressed only by two 
propositions: First, that we must ever strive to realize 
our ideals ; second, that an ideal realized is a contradiction 
of terms. Idealism, in a word, is a vision of possibilities 
higher than one's present achievements and ever leading 
him onward. 

It is the desire to reach a resting place which inspires 
the everlasting struggle for wealth. We imagine that by 
once making a fortune we complete our earthly task. 
Upon the contrary wealth is only a stepping-stone to its 
wise use and to our consequent growth in character. 
"Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of 
unrighteousness that when it fails they may receive you 
into eternal tabernacles." 

The desire for a diploma is due to one's longing for a 
specific goal where no further demands may be made upon 
him. You have doubtless heard of the early graduate who, 
after his last examination, threw down his book with the 
exclamation, "Thank God, I shall never need to study any 
more!" He must have been a very early graduate. It 
was for the benefit of such that our fathers named the 
closing day of college life Commencement Day, instead of 
a Day of Completions. You recall your childhood ideal in 
education, namely, to read and write. Later your ideal 
was to go through the high school. Then you dreamed of 
a college course. To-day you plan for postgraduate study. 



176 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



But that attained your ideal never will let you rest until, 
like a son of God, you become at home in his infinite realm 
of truth. 

So the struggle for sanctification on the part of some 
good people is an effort to accumulate spiritual riches, to 
lay up a supply of works of supererogation on which the 
soul can draw for future need. Such a saint reminds one of 
the sea captain who cried, "Lord, only help me this time, 
and I will not trouble you again so long as I live." Wesley, 
in his eagerness to overcome the lethargy of church mem- 
bers and to deliver his followers from conformity to low 
standards, which has been the bane of the Christian life, 
lifted up the banner of Christian perfection, and sum- 
moned his people to spread scriptural holiness over the 
earth. Every member of the church ought to follow 
Wesley's advice in this regard. I am inclined to go beyond 
even Wesley's position and to protest against the Christian 
resting in a "second blessing," or trusting that he is de- 
livered from "the body of sin." Logic seems to be upon 
the other side. Why did Christ teach us to pray, "Thy 
kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," 
unless it is possible for the prayer to be fulfilled and God's 
will to be done by us as perfectly as by the angels? If 
we can live free from condemnation for an hour, or a day, 
or a week, why not for a month, for a year, for a lifetime ? 
Life, however, seems to be larger than logic. Miss Bosan- 
quet, the sweetest and most consistent Christian among 
Wesley's saints, told Wesley years after her sanctification 
that she had not been able to maintain a heart always free 
from condemnation. This corresponds to the statement 
made to me by Dr. Keen — the Saint Samuel of this uni- 
versity — namely, that he did not profess sinlessness, but 
the moment he felt condemned he immediately turned to 



CHEISTIAN IDEALISM 



177 



Jesus for forgiveness and then strove on again to remain 
free from condemnation. This enabled him to say that 
he had never deliberately walked with sin, or remained in 
conscious condemnation five minutes after he gave himself 
wholly to the Lord. Such a man is our embodiment of 
Christian idealism. The testimony of Miss Bosanquet and 
Dr. Keen corresponds to Mr. Wesley's experience, who 
summed up his life in the pregnant phrase: "A sinner 
saved by grace." Illogical it may be ; but the same Christ 
who taught us to pray, and expected us ever to strive to 
realize the petition, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be 
done on earth, as it is in heaven," taught us also to add, 
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Chris- 
tian idealism demands that we strive unceasingly and ever- 
lastingly to maintain hearts free from condemnation. But 
in summoning you to the heights of holiness, I cannot 
promise that you shall reach a state of sinlessness in which 
you can omit to cry for mercy. 

Surely, you will not abandon your struggle for your 
ideal because you cannot map out in advance your spiritual 
geography and locate the goal. Is it necessary for one to 
know in advance exactly how rich he may become in order 
to engage in the struggle for wealth? Is it necessary for 
a member of this class to know how far his political ambi- 
tion will carry him before he enters upon public life? I 
hope some of you will continue the study of science. But 
did Dolbear know how far he could advance in electricity, 
or Conkling in zoology, before they started on their 
careers ? In the nature of the case I cannot describe what 
you shall discover in chemistry or physics until the dis- 
covery is made; and then the Eoentgen ray or liquid air 
reveals possibilities of other discoveries still more mar- 
velous. So just because the spiritual is infinite, it is 



178 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



impossible to fix the goal of your growth. Paul does not 
define it, but says: "Press on unto perfection." This is 
why the Bible leaves the goal indefinite. "Till we all 
attain . . . unto the measure of the stature of the fullness 
of Christ." Christ makes our aim as infinite as God. 
"Be therefore perfect even as your Father which is in 
heaven is perfect." So William Vaughn Moody sings : 

"Careless where our face is set, 

Let us take the Open Way. 
What we are no tongue has told, 

Still less what we are to be. 
We have heard a Voice cry, 'Onward!' 

That was all we heard it say." 

II. How Realize Your Ideals 

We already have spoken of the Bible and prayer, and the 
cultivation of the Holy Spirit as essential means for the 
reenforcement of our personality. The more specific 
direction for the realization of our ideals is found in 
Christ's command, "But seek ye first the kingdom of 
God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall 
be added unto you." Is there not still glowing in your 
hearts the burning message of Professor Stevenson, de- 
livered more than a year ago, "First the Kingdom" ? The 
gospel of the Kingdom is summed up in two statements 
which seem to contradict each other, but which are only 
two sides of a larger truth: First, never seek your ideal; 
second, always idealize life. 

All the poets teach that perfection can be reached only 
by indirection. In Lowell's vision of Sir Launf al, the 
knight, riding out of the palace in his high search for 
the Holy Grail, sees a leper lying by the roadside and 



CHKISTIAN IDEALISM 



179 



tosses him disdainfully a purse of gold. After years of 
seeking in vain for the symbol of perfection, at last the 
knight returns to his palace gate only to find himself sup- 
planted by another. Strange to relate, the same leprous 
beggar still lies at the roadside. Instead of rushing into 
the palace to claim his rights, or of being annoyed now by 
the sight of the leper, grown wiser and more loving by 
experience, the knight dismounts, fills a wooden cup with 
water and divides his last crust with the beggar. By this 
last step in forgetfulness the knight reaches the goal of 
perfection and finds himself ministering, not to a leprous 
beggar, but to the Son of God ! So Tennyson teaches that 
the Holy Grail is found at last only by the pure in heart. 

"His strength was as the strength of ten 
Because his heart was pure." 

But what is purity but the loftiest unselfishness in obedi- 
ence to the highest ideals of manhood and womanhood? 
Is it not significant also that Goethe, the king of modern 
culture, after he had tried in his own life and embodied in 
his poems at least three other solutions of the problem of 
perfection, at last teaches in Part Second of Faust that the 
soul does not reach its ideal of happiness, or of wisdom, or 
of perfection by any direct striving after it, but only by 
the unselfish service of others ? "First the Kingdom." 

See how Jesus illustrates the holiness of helpfulness and 
solves the problem between service and self-culture. He 
knew that every hour spent in communion with the Father 
better fitted him for the service of the race. This explains 
his thirty years of play and study and toil and growth. 
He was getting ready for his tasks. "For their sakes I 
sanctify myself." On the other hand Jesus saw that the 



180 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



highest sacrifice he could be called upon to make for the 
sake of others was equally necessary for his own perfection. 
Hence when his followers told him that Herod threatened 
his life, he answered : "Go ye and tell that fox, Behold, I 
cast out devils, and do cures to-day and to-morrow, and 
the third day I shall be" — what? Crucified? Yes, that 
is what took place on the third day; and Jesus foresaw it. 
But that is not what Jesus called the death awaiting him. 
"And the third day I shall be perfected" — as if his supreme 
sacrifice for the world were simply the perfecting of his 
own nature. Service is sanctification. Helpfulness is 
holiness. The realization of idealism is nothing more nor 
less than obedience to the law of love. This is the gospel 
of the Kingdom. 

But while a pharisaic search for personal perfection and 
Christian idealism are contradictory in terms, rest assured 
that the gospel of the Kingdom never can leave you out. 
The supreme command to love your neighbor as yourself 
implies self-regard, and only demands that your care of 
self be balanced by an equal love of others. Let not your 
heart be troubled, for you too are a member of the King- 
dom and embraced in God's providential plan. The 
danger of those who are engrossed in service is that they 
will become Marthas instead of Marys. You are not called 
to be God's "hired hands" and "servant girls," but his 
children. We are not simply God's machines set up in this 
world to turn out as much work as possible. The world's 
work was ordained for our sake. It is only advanced play 
given us by God for our own development and perfection. 
If God's object in the world were simply to get his work 
done, he would do it himself, not bother us with it, and 
especially bother himself with both it and us. He could 
clear all the forests and break all the ground and build all 



CHEISTIAN IDEALISM 



181 



the roads and houses and machinery and ships and 
churches — do by a single word all which we have ac- 
complished in five thousand years. Above all, God is not a 
Fagin, compelling you to cheat in business and lie in reform 
and to lose your self-respect by seeking office in church 
and state in order to advance the interests of the Kingdom 
— and also to advance yourself. God wants not your works, 
but you; he seeks not servants, but sons and daughters. 
Christian idealism commands us to stop living for our 
work, and above all things to stop working for a living. 
It summons us, rather, to begin living in our work. It 
puts character into washing dishes or keeping accounts, or 
reading Greek, and thus glorifies the doer and makes the 
deed divine. The idealist would as soon eat by proxy or 
play ball by proxy or go courting by proxy as to wrestle 
with mathematics through a key or master Greek with a 
pony. The cheat plays with loaded dice— and loses all the 
fun of the game of life. All of you have been delighted by 
the freedom and gladness of birds and lambs and little 
children. Is it not striking that our advance in years is 
marked by a loss of freedom and joy? This is due to sin 
and is not a divine arrangement. Joy lies farther along 
the road, as the idealism brings in the aristocracy of love, 
the age of gladness, of divine courtesy and of angelic 
graces. Why should you be anxious when the universe and 
God are on your side? Why should you be unduly eager 
even in the pursuit of personal perfection so long as you 
have eternity in which to grow ? You need not be anxious 
even in regard to missing heaven, for God wants you even 
more than you want him. Dr. McDowell says that the 
reason God is so anxious to redeem the race is because he 
needs some one to associate with, he wants playmates. 
What a note of the Kingdom is that tender passage of 



182 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



Hebrews: "And these all, having obtained a good report 
through faith, received not the promise : God having pro- 
vided some better thing for us, that they without us should 
not be made perfect." The perfection of heaven waits 
for the redemption of earth. Even more tender are the 
words of Jesus: "I will drink no more of the fruit of the 
vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of 
God." 

Above all, the interests of the Kingdom demand that 
you ever more idealize those around you. How marvelously 
loves idealize ! If a young man could multiply his wages 
as he magnifies the graces of the girl enthroned in his 
heart, Rockefeller would be a beggar in comparison. The 
aureole which the lover sees upon his fair one's brow often 
seems to the rest of us only a halo of moonshine. But 
thank God for men and women who idealize each other, 
who see graces which only exist in germ, and keep each 
other ever stretching upward in order not completely to 
disappoint expectations. 

Old residents of Delaware remember that President 
Hayes's father died before the child was born; and the 
mother was sore oppressed by sorrow and burdened with 
care. So the babe was born sick. A rude workman was 
annoyed by the crying child, and said on being greeted by 
a wail of the baby on his return to work, "I supposed 
that young one would be dead before I came back this 
morning." 

"0, no, the baby is not going to die," said the mother. 
"He will live and be President yet." 

The prophecy was not a prevision. It was something 
infinitely better than prevision. It was an expression of 
the infinite idealism of mothers. Every mother believes 
that her babe may become the President. "Charity [love] 



CHBISTIAN IDEALISM 



183 



beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things. Charity [love] never faileth." The 
world measures your idealism by your love. "Henceforth 
we know no man after the flesh," but after the spirit rather, 
with a vision of the possibilities in Christ. 

Do not imagine that Christian idealism makes you 
oblivious of sin or indifferent to sin in your friends. It 
is not your idealism but your compromises which make you 
tolerant of sin in others. Just because mothers are ideal- 
ists they hate intensely the sins which ruin their children. 
It is only as you catch the vision of your loved one's possi- 
bilities in Christ and see how sin mars the divine ideal in 
him that you hate it with a perfect hatred. 

The best service you can render your loved ones is to 
idealize them, and to hold them everlastingly up to your 
ideals. This is an infinitely better service than to dis- 
trust their power of helping themselves and attempt to 
carry their burdens for them. Christ was humanity's 
brother. He created ideal men by idealizing real men, 
turned the impulsive Simon into Peter the rock, trans- 
formed the Magdalene into a saint, lifted his mother to her 
throne as Queen of womanhood, changed the Pharisaic 
Saul into Paul — the little one — and the cursing son of 
thunder into the loving John. Christ's idealization of 
humanity is a secret of the new birth. Cultivate Christ's 
idealism and you may repeat his highest miracle — the 
transformation of the character of your friends. 

III. The Outlook for Christian Idealism 

William Vaughn Moody, the Kudyard Kipling of the 
West, has set the critics guessing whether he portrays the 
appetites of men, or modern machinery, or the corporation, 



184 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



or the laboring man, in his poem on "The Brute." At any 
rate, by changing his lines slightly, we strike the keynote 
of the twentieth century in the vision of even the brute in 
man traveling along the pathway of Christian idealism up 
to angelhood. 

"They who caught him, bound him tight, 
Laughed exultant at his might, 

Saying, 'Now behold the good time comes for the wariest and 

the least. 
We will use this lusty knave; 
No more need to toil and slave; 

We may rise and look about us and have knowledge ere 

the grave/ 
But the Brute said in his breast, 
'Till the mills I grind have ceased, 

The riches shall be dust of dust, dry ashes be the feast.' 
So he plotted in his rage, 
So he deals it age by age; 

But even as he roared his curse a still small voice befell. 
Lo, a still and pleasant voice 
Bade them none the less rejoice; 

For the Brute must bring the good time on, he has no other 
choice. 

He must loose the curse of Adam from the worn neck of the 

race; 

He must cast out hate and fear, 
Drive away each fruitless tear, 

And make the fruitful tears to gush from the deep heart and 
clear. 

He must give each man his portion. 
Each his pride and worthy place; 

He must batter down the arrogant and lift the weary face. 
Then perhaps ere the last day 
Brute will yield to manhood's sway; 
And men can stand uncovered in the face of God and say, 
'Honor, Lord, the Thing we tamed; 
Let him not be scourged and blamed; 



CHBISTIAN IDEALISM 



185 



Even through his wrath and fierceness was thy fierce wroth 

world reclaimed! 
Honor thou thy servants' servant; let thy justice now be 

shown.' 

Then the Lord will hear their praying and the Brute come 
to his own. 

'Twixt the lion and the eagle by the arm post of the throne."" 

Our first hope of Christ's idealism rests upon the exist- 
ence and the persistence of the Church of God. The 
kingdom of heaven upon earth is a fact which must be rec- 
ognized and reckoned with. Napoleon, worldling as he 
was, nevertheless was a great enough soldier and statesman 
to recognize Christ's kingdom and to appreciate its 
strength. "My soldiers have already forgotten me; mil- 
lions would die for Him. What an abyss between my 
misery and the eternal reign of Christ !" 

In the recent uprising in China, where we hardly dared 
to hope that Christ had found a foothold, thousands of 
native Christians, who heard only a fragment of the Bible ; 
Christians, some of whom had not yet been admitted to our 
churches, who were scorned by their own people and char- 
acterized by impartial travelers — God save the mark — as 
"Christians for revenue"; Christians whose teachers were 
only looters in the eyes of such an American saint as Mark 
Twain — thousands of such poor Chinese men and women 
simply died for Christ! And men ask, wonderingly,, 
whether there is yet faith on earth! The strongest power 
on this globe to-day, and the growing power of the world, 
is the kingdom of heaven on earth. Christian idealism is 
bound to triumph because the forces of the universe are on 
its side. 

The second ground for confidence is the agreement of 
modern science and the Bible in their prophecy of our 



186 



THE DEMAXD FOR CHEIST 



destiny. Science does not indeed foretell either a heaven 
in some other sphere or a millennium on earth. But science 
teaches us clearly that man is the highest being upon the 
globe. The whole process of evolution culminates in man. 
Again, since man's appearance upon the globe, the whole 
tendency of nature is to develop his brain and his character. 
Man is not stronger nor swifter nor more capable of 
physical endurance than were his animal ancestors. But 
his brain is distinctively larger than the ape's. His growth 
has been along mental and moral and spiritual lines. The 
latest and highest anthropology teaches that man is dis- 
tinguished from the animals partly by his reason, partly 
by his will, but primarily by love. The social instinct, and 
especially pity, marks the divergence of the human family 
from its ape progenitors. Love is the very essence of man- 
hood. Hence the latest verdict of science confirms the 
highest teachings of the Bible : a Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy strength, . . . and thy neighbor as thyself/' 
Science is strangely confirmed by prophecy: "The whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until 
now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have 
the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to-wit, the 
redemption of the body." "Ye, therefore, shall be perfect, 
as your heavenly Father is perfect." "We look for a new 
heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
"Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet 
made manifest what we shall be. We know that if he shall 
be manifested we shall be like him; for we shall see him 
as he is. And every one that hath this hope set on him 
purifieth himself, even as he is pure." Since the Bible is 
true, Christian idealism is assured. If evolution is true, 



CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 



187 



our future is assured, for we are moving in the right direc- 
tion, from animalhood to angelhood; and we have already 
covered two thirds of the journey. Surely if by the wooing 
of nature and the grace of God we have journeyed safely 
through the burden and dust and heat of the day until we 
can almost hear the evening bells calling us home to supper 
with the Lord — surely, we shall not now miss the way, but 
shall meet Christ around the table in the eternal home ! 

Members of the Class of 1901: Your unique position de- 
termines your duty. If America's work for the twentieth 
century is to bring in the new type of manhood, it is your 
high privilage to help inaugurate the struggle. My first, 
last, and only exhortation is for you to strive boldly, ener- 
getically, everlastingly after your ideal. "Go on unto per- 
fection/' The measure of your idealism is the eagerness 
with which you listen to the voice of God in your souls and 
the loyalty with which you say, "Yes, Lord," to every 
message from on high. "Not that you have already ob- 
tained, or are made perfect, but press on, if so be that you 
may apprehend that for which also you were apprehended 
by Christ Jesus/' 

The reward is in proportion to the struggle. Most 
church members seem to feel that heaven is a dead level, 
and that if they have enough religion to get inside the 
gates, they are on a par with all the other saints. But 
communism of character is even more impossible than 
communism of wealth. The laws of the universe, which 
ordain that every man reap what he sows, fail least of all 
in the kingdom of heaven. More than a hundred of you 
will stand side by side next Thursday and receive your 
diplomas. This is proper, for you have fulfilled the same 
outward demands, and God has given us no scales with 
which to weigh your motives. But you have not all the 



188 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



same preparation for life — as you know, and as we know, 
and as the world soon will discover. You will be wider 
and wider apart in your wealth, your intellectual position, 
your social and professional standing every time you come 
back to a reunion. You will be infinitely wider apart in 
character in the great reunion around the throne. God 
pity those of you, if any such there be, who are content with 
low ideals. I need not pray God's blessing upon you who 
are in the pathway to holiness, for the universe and God 
are on your side. 

And so shall we not repeat once more together the prayer 
of Christian idealism — the prayer we have prayed and 
chanted together daily for the last four years, but which 
we shall not repeat again in outward unison until we 
gather around the throne: "Thy kingdom come; thy will 
be done in earth as it is in heaven." 



X 



EEVIVALS OF EELIGION 1 
O Lord, revive thy work. — Habakkuk 3. 2. 

1. The chief need of the world to-day is a general re- 
vival of the Christian religion. The preconceptions of 
some of us are not favorable to revivals. We are anxious 
that our friends should enter the Christian life and become 
members of the Christian Church. But we would like to 
have these friends break up life-long habits and change the 
fundamental purposes of their souls in a quiet and de- 
corous manner. We dread the excitement and struggle of 
a revival. Theories, however, cannot stand for a moment 
against stubborn facts. There is one fact which renders a 
revival necessary for a vast number of people, both inside 
and outside the church. All scientists recognize that all 
members of the vegetable and animal kingdom, including 
man, may be in any one of three states, a state of balance, a 
state of evolution, or a state of degeneration. E. Eay 
Lankester, in his book upon Degeneration, and St. George 
Mivart, in Lessons from Nature, and Henry Drummond, 
in his chapter on "Degeneration," and even Darwin him- 
self, in his Origin of Species, tell us that retrogression is 
as much a fact of nature as is evolution or progress. You 
have all read that the Crustacea which have inhabited the 
lakes of the Mammoth Cave for centuries have entirely lost 
their power of vision by their failure to use their eyes from 

1 Monthly lecture before the students of Ohio Wesleyan 
University, January 14, 1891. 

189 



190 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



generation to generation. In fact, the globe teems with 
degenerate life. 

Nor is this degeneration confined to the animal kingdom. 
History is full of illustrations of the decay of races and 
the decline of nations. We all know families in which the 
children seem to fall away from the lofty purposes and even 
the intellectual vigor of their progenitors. If we make a 
close inquisition into our own hearts, scores of us who are 
members of the church will recognize that the degeneration 
of the animal kingdom and the decay of nations has its 
parallel in moral and spiritual backsliding. How many 
of us at present are living upon as lofty a plane as we 
have ever attained in the Christian life ? Have not many 
of us climbed mountain peaks of spiritual experience and 
caught glimpses of the land of promise and then descended 
again into the dusty valley of worldliness and sin ? Again, 
all of our unconverted friends have sinned against the light. 
Ideally, these friends should begin the Christian life and 
enter the church as soon as they reach the years of responsi- 
bility. But practically they have not done so. They all 
have started upon downward courses. Now, the first ques- 
tion before us this afternoon is this : Can this word degen- 
eration be applied with any truthfulness to the vegetable 
and animal kingdom, and especially to man? Especially 
is it true that our spiritual vision has become dimmed and 
that our spiritual strength has in any measure declined ? 
If this fact exists in the physical and moral universe, then 
only one remedy is open to us, namely, a revival — the 
regaining by a supreme moral effort of the spiritual heights 
which have been lost. We repeat, therefore, with this 
universe as it is, revivals become a supreme necessity. 

There is one possible danger attending a revival, namely, 
that people may be carried by excitement beyond their 



REVIVALS OF RELIGION 



191 



judgment. Were I preaching to a tribe of idolaters, and 
were the chief of that tribe to profess conversion, the whole 
tribe might desire to follow in his footsteps. In such a 
case it would be the duty of the minister to restrain the 
revival influences, to refuse to baptize the members of the 
tribe until he had first instructed them and led them to 
some spiritual apprehension of the step which they con- 
templated. So if some of you present this afternoon are 
already living up to the best light you have, if your action 
is the embodiment of your personal convictions, and if a 
revival threatens to sweep you beyond your convictions, we 
are sure that such a movement would prove harmful rather 
than helpful to your moral natures. But is that the condi- 
tion of any considerable number present? Nay. Is not 
this the supreme failure of our lives, namely, that we are 
f ailing to live up to our ideals, that our conduct falls far 
below our personal convictions? Surely, it is wise for 
each man to begin to live up to the best light that he has. 
But if each one does this, the vast majority of this audience 
will make an immediate change and a revival will be in- 
augurated at once. Is there any possible danger in such 
a revival as this? 

2. Revivals are normal. We have tried to show that a 
revival is a supreme necessity because neither the church 
nor the world is in an ideal state, and because we ought 
at once to begin living up to our convictions, and because 
such a course, universally adopted, would result in a 
revival unprecedented in the history of the world. We are 
inclined to think moreover, that with the world and the 
church in an ideal state, a movement closely corresponding 
to modern revivals would still take place. Life moves in 
periods and cycles. We have night and day, and most men 
prefer this to constant twilight. We have summer and 



192 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



winter, seed time and harvest. We have our hours of 
work and our hours of sleep. No teacher says to the 
student as he begins to study his lesson energetically : "Be 
careful, young man, not to become excited. Do not study 
so hard now that you cannot maintain your study for 
twenty-four hours each day." On the contrary, every 
wise teacher cultivates the power of consecration in the 
student. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
thy might." Education is essentially a twofold process. 
It is a receptive process and a practical process. No 
student is rash enough to say : "I do not wish to assume an 
attitude in regard to education which I cannot maintain 
during a lifetime. I am not willing to start to college 
because I cannot spend all my years at the University." 
Everyone recognizes the fitness of devoting certain years 
to study for the acquirement of knowledge, and other 
years to business for the application of our learning to the 
practical problems of life, that we may thus transmute 
knowledge into wisdom. All business has its cycles. We 
have a period of expansion followed by a period of contrac- 
tion. Nature insists upon our observance of these periods. 
She teaches us to observe the time of sowing and the 
time of reaping. If, therefore, we mean by revivals not 
the regaining of lost ground, but waiting upon God to 
renew our strength, we may expect such periods even in 
the millennium. 

Even the angels in heaven must have their periods of 
looking into the face of God, or waiting before him for 
strength and inspiration, followed by periods of activity 
and blessed service. The attempt on the part of the 
Christian Church, therefore, to spend a few days or weeks 
in waiting before the Lord, to come daily during this 
period into his sanctuary to listen to what God will say to 



EEVIVALS OF KELIGION 193 



us and to receive fresh inspiration and strength and wis- 
dom from Him, and then to go out into the world for the 
remainder of the year to apply Christian principles with 
loftier motives to the daily affairs of life does not rest 
simply upon the confession of sinfulness. Such an exer- 
cise is something loftier and nobler than the attempt to 
regain lost ground. It is a necessary step in the infinite 
progress of the soul toward divine perfection. We repeat, 
therefore, that revivals are normal and that something 
corresponding to these special services will character- 
ize the church during its millennial period. 

3. The history of both the church and the Bible con- 
firms this view of Christian progress. In looking through 
two handbooks of revivals a few years ago I gathered 
statistics from the Methodist and Congregational Churches 
in New England. I learned that during the year 1864 
one thousand and eighty-three evangelical churches in 
New England held no revival services. They attempted 
to build up their membership by what they called normal 
methods. They feared excitement and were unwilling to 
reach a stage in the Christian life for a few weeks which 
could not be maintained throughout the whole year. They 
attempted, therefore, to gain their members through what 
they called ordinary channels of grace. And these one 
thousand and eighty-three churches with a membership of 
over one hundred thousand reported a net loss of three 
hundred and fifty-one members during the year. At this 
rate of progress how long would it take the Christian 
Church to win over the eight hundred million souls who 
have not yet heard of Christ? Twenty-eight churches in 
New England this same year held revival services and 
reported a net gain of seven hundred and eighty-seven 
members, a gain of about twenty-eight members each. 



194 



THE DEMAXD FOR CHRIST 



Had the other churches done as well, they would have 
reported a net gain of twenty-nine thousand souls for the 
year. There are three ways in which it seems to me 
possible for churches to make gains. One method, and 
it seems to me that the most desirable method, is to teach 
our children in the Sunday school and in the home the 
importance of a lifelong choice of Christ, and lead them 
by twos and threes and fours into the church at every 
communion service. This work, however, will require the 
revival spirit and the revival method. The only difference 
between such work and the work in which the churches of 
Delaware are now engaged is that the cycles would be far 
more frequent in the method outlined than they are to-day. 
We should then have our seasons of waiting before the 
Lord, followed by renewed activity, only these seasons 
would resemble our daily and weekly worship, whereas the 
present revival method is an attempt on the part of some 
church members to balance the worldliness of a year by 
the consecration of a month. The second method of 
winning souls is the present revival method. The third 
method of building up a church is by stealing converts 
from other churches — a method which was originated by 
Satan and which fills hell with laughter. 

The church has always made her great conquests under 
revival influences. What was it that transformed England 
during the eighteenth century and saved us from a revolu- 
tion more horrible than that which desolated France ? It 
was, according to the testimony of Green and Lecky and 
other unbiased historians, the revival of religion which was 
inaugurated by the Wesleys and Whitefield. What was the 
force which regenerated England when, under the reign of 
Charles I, she was sinking under the example of her dissi- 
pated king and her corrupt nobility? It was that great 



EEVIVALS OF BELIGION 195 



revival called Puritanism under such leaders as Milton 
and Cromwell. The crusades, the greatest movement of 
the mediaeval ages, was nothing more nor less than a great 
religious revival turned to political ends. What originated 
the Keformation which began in Germany and spread 
rapidly in Europe until it convulsed the nations and filled 
the earth with confusion and yet gave birth to modern civil- 
ization and modern institutions? It was a revival of re- 
ligion in the heart of Martin Luther, Melanchthon, and 
Zwingli, and in thousands of earnest souls. The Kef orma- 
tion is wholly misunderstood if we conceive it to have been 
primarily either a political, an ecclesiastical, or a doctrinal 
movement. The Eeformation was born in Martin Luther's 
heart when, after years of struggle, he found the way of life 
through simple faith in Christ. All heroic periods of the 
Christian Church have been revival periods. Go back to 
the very dawn of Christianity and you will find that the 
church was born in a revival. Christ laid upon his dis- 
ciples an immense burden, nothing less than the evangel- 
ization of the entire world. "Go ye unto all the world, and 
preach my gospel to every creature." Well might the dis- 
ciples have said, "If this mighty task must be performed, 
we must be about it at once." Christ himself might have 
urged them to move forward to the fulfillment of this task 
without a moment's delay. But hark ! He adds a closing 
sentence, "But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye 
be endued with power from on high." The disciples 
gathered together for a prayer meeting the first morning 
after Christ's ascension, doubtless expecting that this en- 
duement would come within an hour or two. But the 
prayer meeting dragged through the first day and no visita- 
tion from on high. I doubt not some of the more im- 
patient souls left, and perhaps said that they would better 



196 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



be about their mighty task, that they might expect the 
blessing to come in the performance of the duty. But the 
counsel of wiser souls prevailed the third day and the 
fourth day and the fifth day and the sixth day, and on 
until the tenth day without the visitation from on high. 
But on the tenth day, when they were all together with 
one accord, suddenly the heavens were opened and the 
Holy Ghost descended upon them. Then their work 
began and that day the church gained three thousand con- 
verts. The Christian Churcb was born in a revival. A 
little later we read that upon another day five thousand 
converts were added to the church. As we read through 
the record in Acts we find that "a great multitude" was 
added to the church, and that "much people" were con- 
verted. And still later "a great multitude believed." 
Surely, revivals characterized the church during the first 
two centuries of her history. Are we so much wiser than 
Paul, and Peter, and John, that we can build up the church 
by better methods than those which they adopted? With, 
therefore, the fact of degeneration which is often sadly 
illustrated in the Christian experience of many of us, with 
the fact that in our normal state we shall have our seasons 
of waiting before God followed by seasons of activity, and 
with the history of the church in its brilliant periods con- 
stantly illustrating this need of waiting before God, we 
repeat our first declaration that the deepest need of the 
modern world is a universal revival of religion. 

4. How may we promote a revival? We answer; (1) 
By prayer. We have just cited the experience of the early 
church. I confess that I do not understand clearly the 
philosophy of prayer. I do not clearly see why it was 
necessary for the apostles to wait ten days for the outpour- 
ing of the Spirit, instead of receiving him upon the first 



REVIVALS OF RELIGION 197 



day of their supplications. I cannot think that God was 
arbitrary in regard to the time. I believe, therefore, that 
this period of waiting and prayer represents simply the 
time which is required upon our part to come to a perfect 
consecration to God. At times, however, I am inclined to 
think that this statement does not touch the deepest secret 
of prayer. No soul is born into the spiritual kingdom 
without travail. Perhaps we must fill up for particular 
souls that which remains behind of the sacrifice of Christ. 
Mr. Finney relates that upon one occasion when he was 
holding revival services a Christian blacksmith reached 
such a state of agony over the condition of the church 
and his unsaved friends that he locked his shop and 
devoted the rest of the day to wrestling with God in prayer. 
Toward night he received the assurance that his prayer 
was answered, and a sweeping revival began that evening. 
There is something mysterious in this power of prayer. 
Certainly, God does not give us the power to overslaugh 
another's will and to force our friend into the Kingdom, 
but he does give us the power to bring friends face to face 
with God and to put them under conviction. I sometimes 
fear that the modern church is not realizing all the possi- 
bilities that lie in prayer. that the Christians in this 
room might wrestle with God ; cry with the unconquerable 
determination of Jacob, "I will not let thee go except thou 
bless me." that we might ascend the mountain peaks 
of faith and like Moses stand face to face with God in 
solemn, solitary communion, until, like him, too, our faces 
should be transformed and catch something of the radiance 
of the angelic world. Whether there is any sufficient ex- 
planation of the fact or not, the fact remains that no Chris- 
tian revival can begin here or elsewhere without this 
prevailing prayer. 



198 , THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



(2) Our prayers, if genuine, will give birth to earnest 
work. What would you think of the student coming before 
his professor and upon a failure to recite his lesson saying, 
"Professor, I asked God to give me this lesson, and I am 
astonished that he has not done so"? That conception of 
prayer simply turns supplication into a species of magic 
by which we try to secure results, without fulfilling the 
laws of the universe. Prayer is never intended to enable a 
soul to avoid the laws of God's universe. It is intended 
to fill the soul with such strength and inspiration that it 
shall fulfill in the loftiest sense those laws upon which 
success alone is possible. You know nothing of the earnest, 
inwrought prayer of the righteous man, unless your prayer 
has stimulated you to put forth every possible effort for 
the answering of your prayer. Jesus says: "Ask, and ye 
shall receive." This is a petition going up to God. He 
says : "Seek, and ye shall find." This is the attempt with 
every ransomed power to secure the answer to the petition. 
He says : "Knock, and it shall be opened." This is the 
attempt with every ransomed power to overcome the 
obstacles which stand in the way of the fulfillment of your 
petition. We are Christ's messengers. We hold a posi- 
tion which angels might well covet. We fail utterly to 
appreciate our privilege and our opportunity, if we see our 
unconverted friends sitting by our sides, or meeting us 
daily in the recitation rooms and we simply ask God to 
speak to them, and neglect our own peculiar privilege and 
duty as messengers of the Most High to these perishing 
souls. There must be also unconquerable determination 
in our work. Jacob Knapp began holding special services 
in Penn Yan, New York, some fifty years ago. The church 
was weak and the town was full of scoffers. He held 
services for an entire week without a single sign that he 



EEVIVALS OF KELIGION 



199 



had produced an impression upon the community. He 
continued services the second week without the slightest 
indication of a movement toward the Kingdom. He con- 
tinued the services the third week with no encouragement 
that he had produced an impression upon a single soul. 
Scoffers began to laugh. Skeptics began to mock, and one 
of them banteringly said to him : "Mr. Knapp, how long do 
you propose to toil with us ?" Jacob Knapp replied like 
a hero : "Until I see a revival in Penn Yan, or until my 
bones bleach in your cemetery." It was that unconquer- 
able purpose which gave Jacob Knapp the victory, and 
which finally led to the greatest revival which had ever 
stirred that town. 

You remember that when General Grant began the 
battle of the Wilderness the authorities at Washington 
were extremely anxious for the result. They expected a 
telegram at least in the afternoon informing them of vic- 
tory, or possibly, of defeat. But the afternoon wore away 
without any decisive news. It was a period of awful 
suspense; for the government was putting forth its 
supreme effort, and the destiny of the republic was hanging 
in the balance. But the second morning dawned and the 
struggle in the Wilderness continued with no decisive 
result. The second day wore away, and the third day 
dawned. And so the battle raged the third day, and the 
fourth day, and the fifth day, and the sixth day with no 
decisive results. General Grant himself reports that on 
one of these mornings in order to be ahead of the enemy in 
the attack he ordered the assault to begin at four thirty 
a. M. He again reports that on another of these memor- 
able days it was three o'clock in the morning before the 
fighting ceased and that his men had been under fire for 
twenty hours. So desperate was one of the struggles that 



200 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



a tree eighteen inches in diameter was cut down by musket 
balls. But still the invincible warrior moved on. The 
trees were set on fire by shells, and the wounded were 
suffocated or burned to death, and the officers at Washing- 
ton were in an agony of suspense. But the iron courage of 
the great commander remained unbroken. At the close 
of the six days General Grant sent a brief letter to Wash- 
ington, ordering fresh provisions to be forwarded to the 
troops, and added: "I propose to fight it out on this line 
if it takes all summer." It was not simply his far-reach- 
ing plans, his ready resources, and his irrepressible energy ; 
it was his unconquerable tenacity which made General 
Grant the greatest military commander of the world. 

The one quality in which General Grant excelled Lee 
was in this unconquerable grit. for a General Grant 
to lead the spiritual hosts in the battles of the wilderness 
which are raging in all our churches to-day ! 

The struggle is of more importance than most of us 
imagine. I said a little while ago that there were eight 
hundred million or one billion unconverted people upon the 
face of the globe to-day. Christianity has made grand 
conquests thus far. If she can continue this work, the 
millennium may dawn in two or three hundred more years. 
But did you ever think that you and I have nothing what- 
ever to do with all the struggles of the past generations; 
that you and I, in one sense, have nothing to do with the 
still greater victories which may be won in the twenty-first 
and twenty-second centuries? The only generation for 
which we are responsible is the present generation. The 
persons whom we may touch are the thousand million who 
are yet without a knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. These thousand million souls must be en- 
lightened in the next few years or enter upon their eternal 



REVIVALS OF RELIGION 201 



careers without the help which you and I might give 
them. I am sure of the final victory of Christ. We are 
marching under a leader in the freshness of his immortal 
youth with a love toward the fallen race which only God 
can fathom, and with resources for the overthrow of Satan's 
kingdom which are simply infinite. But it will not add to 
the brightness of our crown for the millennium to break 
upon the race in the twenty-first century. We, we are 
responsible for the thousand million souls that will pass on 
to another world in the next few years. If a revival 
similar to those of the apostolic age could sweep through 
Delaware and transform our city and university, it would 
doubtless spread to other colleges. From the colleges of 
the land it would spread to the centers of business and of 
literature and of wealth. From the great cities it would 
sweep the country, and from our land it would sweep the 
world. God help us to see that we are a spectacle to angels 
and to men. God help us to do our part toward securing 
the realization of the greatest blessings which humanity 
needs to-day. "0 Lord, revive thy work !" 



XI 



THEEE CONDITIONS OF CONQUERING 
THE WORLD 1 

Luke 14. 16-24; Matthew 25. 14-30; John 10. 1-18. 

Christ reveals three conditions of conquering the world 
through the parable of the great supper, the parable of the 
talents, and the story of the good shepherd. The first 
and most striking of these conditions is found in the par- 
able of the great supper. In this story God is represented 
-as a householder, inviting men to come and partake of food. 
"I am come," says Christ, "that they might have life, and 
that they might have it more abundantly." Summing up 
the first part of the parable, and, indeed, summing up the 
gospel in a sentence, God invites us to receive before he 
summons us to give, and our power to give depends upon 
our ability to receive. Our strength is measured by our 
receptivity. 

But before we are permitted to consider the advantages 
of receptivity, the parable thrusts upon our attention its 
difficulties. The striking feature of the story of the great 
supper consists of the excuses which each guest begins to 
offer, and of the final refusal of them all to come to the 
feast. At first glance, this part of the parable shows an 
apparent lack of fidelity to nature. Who ever heard of 
people refusing an invitation to a feast? The world im- 
presses the onlooker as made up of men struggling for the 
prizes of life, of which there are not enough for all. Prom 

1 Baccalaureate Sermon, Ohio Wesleyan University, June 
16, 1897. 

202 



CONQUERING THE WOELD 



203 



the child reaching out its hands for the moon to the dying 
Goethe crying for more light, humanity seems to be in a 
receptive mood. 

But a clear insight into our hearts will convince us that 
Christ, in the latter part of the parable of the great supper, 
painted human nature, not, indeed, as it appears upon the 
surface, but as it is in its depths. Considering the fact 
that man stands between two eternities, with infinite 
possibilities on his right, and infinite dangers upon his left, 
his pride and self -sufficiency are unaccountable. The most 
striking characteristic of the mind and soul of man is 
their lack of receptivity. Christ teaches this lack, not 
simply in the parable of the great supper, but by plain 
statements. "I am come," he says, "that they might have 
life, and that they might have it more abundantly." 
"But," he sadly adds, "ye will not come to me that ye 
may have life." John pictures Christ as the "true light 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." It 
seems at first thought that the intellect loves truth as the 
body craves food. But Christ says, with perfect insight 
into the human heart : "Men love the darkness rather than 
the light." The art of receptivity is the most difficult art 
on earth to master. 

A comprehension of our slowness in receiving throws 
light on God's action in the bestowal of the talents. Why 
did not the Creator — the Father of all men — give each man 
the same number of talents with which to begin trading? 
Possibly if the man who was offered one talent had received 
five, he would have used them as did the more favored 
servant. But notice how God throws light on the original 
distribution. He says God gave "to each according to his 
several ability." Commentators usually say that this 
phrase means according to each servant's ability to use the 



204 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



talents committed to him. But that is not the true ex- 
planation, for in that case God would have given nothing 
to the man who received one talent, for he showed no 
capacity to use even that. Christ means to say that God 
gives to each man, not according to his ability to use 
talents, but according to his ability to receive them. In 
other words, God gives to each as much as he will take. 
Hence when the man with one talent forfeits it, God turns 
not, according to an ideal scheme of justice, to the man who 
had used his two talents faithfully, but still has only four 
talents, but to the man who now has ten talents. Nor is 
God arbitrary or partial in enriching the man with the 
larger possession. Rather, governed by the conditions of 
the men before him, acting according to the necessities of 
the case, God turns to the servant who has shown himself 
the most receptive. So, harsh as the statement sounds, it 
is a truth based not upon God's partiality in disposing, but 
upon our willingness or unwillingness in receiving which 
Christ utters when he concludes the parable with the 
statement. "For unto every one that hath shall be given, 
and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not 
shall be taken away even that which he hath." 

You remember that Christ wished the disciples to receive 
the Holy Ghost before the crucifixion; and there was no 
reason in the divine nature why the Holy Spirit should 
not have entered their hearts when Christ breathed on the 
eleven and said: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." But the 
disciples did not receive the Holy Spirit at that time. 
While the visible Christ was with them — he whom they 
could see and touch and hear, he who could correct them 
and teach them at every step of the way — they would not 
open their minds to some invisible Spirit. Hence they all 
failed to receive the Holy Spirit before the crucifixion ; and 



CONQITEEING THE WOELD 205 



this was the greatest crisis of the world's history. Again, 
after the ascension, the coming of the Spirit was postponed 
from day to day> not because forty days of begging were 
needed to induce the slighted Spirit to enter their hearts, 
but because forty days of loneliness and humiliation and 
helplessness were needed to open the minds and hearts 
of the apostles to the invisible, and to enable them to 
receive the gift which God was eager to bestow. 

The reason that the art of receptivity is so difficult is 
that it demands the crucifixion of pride, the destruction 
of self-sufficiency, the emptying of oneself of self. Pro- 
fessor Monroe, a teacher of rare spiritual insight, told our 
class at the opening lesson of our last year in the School 
of Oratory that we had made very satisfactory progress 
thus far in our course. "Indeed," he added, "there is only 
one more lesson which you have to learn." We all listened 
with eagerness for the final lesson which was to make us 
orators. "Young people," he added, "you must get rid 
of yourselves. The orator is the man who can empty him- 
self of self and become the mere hollow tube through 
which the aspirations of his age voice themselves." So 
the prophet is the man who can empty himself of self and 
become the mere hollow tube through which, not the aspira- 
tions and passions of men voice themselves, but through 
which God speaks to the world. Do you see why there are 
few prophets among men? 

)ne of the most striking illustrations of the lack of an 
open mind and a receptive spirit is found in the quarrel 
between science and religion. It recalls the old fable of 
the shield. One disputant affirmed that the shield was 
white, as, indeed, it was on the side toward him; and the 
other said that it was black, as was also true of the side 
which he saw. The quarrel arose because neither dis- 



206 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



putant was sufficiently eager for the whole truth to step 
around the shield and see the color on the other side. So 
while God speaks preeminently to the intellect through 
nature and to the spiritual through revelation, yet there is 
no real conflict between God's works and his words. In- 
deed, science has made a remarkable contribution to Chris- 
tianity in its demonstration that the intellect cannot grasp 
even finite truths a priori, that man must wait before 
nature with open mind, and accept facts which he does not 
understand at first, which become intelligible only after he 
has completed his investigation and tested them by experi- 
ment. All that the Christian of scientific spirit asks of the 
skeptic is that he follow in religion the same method which 
nature compels him to follow in building up any science. 
All the scientist of Christian spirit asks of the theologian 
is that he also walk around the shield and see what God has 
written on the other side. The continuance of the quarrel 
from generation to generation, the lack of openness of mind 
on both sides, is the astonishment of Christian scientists 
and of scientific theologians to-day, as it was the grief of 
our Saviour eighteen hundred years ago. 

So, again, the difficulty with the moralist and the ethical 
idealist is not due to the fact that the little righteousness 
which the soul can render God is displeasing to him. It is, 
rather, due to the fact that pride of spirit and self-suffi- 
ciency shut the soul up to its own resources in the face 
of infinite tasks. Thus in our contests with the super- 
natural powers of darkness the moralist dooms us to defeat, 
whereas eternal victory is possible to each, if we will only 
accept the infinite resources which God places at his hand. 
It was the dawning upon Paul's mind of this truth, it was 
his recognition of the necessity of opening his heart and 
receiving God instead of attempting to earn the divine 



CONQUEKING THE WOELD 207 



favor by self -righteousness, it was the recognition that the 
cross stands for infinite gifts for us, and not for infinite 
demands upon us, that led this Pharisee of the Pharisees 
to cry out: "For I am determined not to know anything 
among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." But 
with deep insight into human nature, with a perception 
that then as now sinners would sit gazing at the feast of 
God, hungry yet not eating the proffered food; sinful, yet 
not accepting the offered pardon, which led Paul to add 
with infinite pathos, "unto Jews a stumbling-block, and 
unto Gentiles foolishness." Here is the mystery of the 
cross. In the art of receiving God is the secret of redemp- 
tion and sanctification. May you master the parable of 
the great supper, if you learn no other lesson from the 
Bible. May your life, like Christ's, be measured by its 
height rather than by its length. 

The conditions of receiving God are overlooked through 
their very simplicity. The way to receive God is to receive 
him. Of course there must be a hungering and a thirsting 
after righteousness, a sense of humility and penitence. So 
Schleiermacher defined religion as springing from man's 
feelings of dependence. There is profound wisdom in the 
old couplet: 

"All the fitness he requireth 
Is to feel your need of him." 

Let your soul once see its infinite resources upon the 
one side and its infinite possibilities upon the other, and 
prayer becomes instinctive. The hungry soul as naturally 
prays to God as the famishing babe cries to its mother. 
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness, for they shall be filled/' The secret of receiving God 
is the mastery of the art of prayer. 



208 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



The advantages of the receptive spirit are incalculable. 
If I ask these teachers which member of the class of '97 
will do the most for the world, each professor will think 
of the person who has received most from the college 
course, and name that young man or woman. Their esti- 
mate may be mistaken because they base thir judgment 
upon your capacity to receive from books. But surely 
your capacity to receive from books and teachers, from 
nature, from human companions, and from God will render 
the greatest service to the world. The aggregate of your 
gifts to the world cannot exceed your total receipts. Hence 
the first condition of blessing others is your own enlarge- 
ment and enrichment. 

This principle finds striking illustration in literature. 
Dante was the great poet of the Middle Ages, because he 
had that humility of spirit which made him receptive, 
because he had a hunger and thirst after knowledge, be- 
cause he was full of the appreciation of even the partial 
truths and the imperfect literatures upon which he 
nourished his mind. Hence all the science and phil- 
osophy, all the political and social and affectional life of 
his generation, all the theology and spiritual aspirations 
of his age were received into his spacious mind, trans- 
formed by his strong genius, and then poured out into the 
immeasurable riches of the Divine Comedy. The same 
was true of Goethe, and still more true of Shakespeare. 
The humility of the Bard of Avon led him at first not to 
attempt original work. His hunger for truth and his 
appreciation of others were such that he drew material 
from all imaginable sources — from the Bible to the lowest 
street ballads. His receptivity was such that Shakespeare 
has been called the greatest plagiarist of literature. But 
if you compare the ancient chronicles with Shakespeare's 



CONQUERING THE WORLD 209 



finished products, you will see that the earlier writers are 
no more the authors of Julius Caesar and Hamlet than were 
the Italian quarrymen the sculptors of Michelangelo's 
Moses and David. William Shakespeare was no plagiarist, 
but he was the most receptive mind which has appeared 
in English literature, and hence the most original and 
creative. 

Turning to the spiritual aspect of this truth, you who 
are Christians know how some of your fellow students 
hesitated to receive Christ at all, lest they would cease to 
be natural, and would become mere attenuated ghosts of 
their former selves. But, on the other hand, you know 
how your classmates never were so sincere and genuine, 
never were so truly their best selves, as after their recep- 
tion of Christ. And yet is it not incredible that we who 
are Christians are afraid to surrender ourselves absolutely 
to the Lord, to open up our minds and hearts and purposes 
unreservedly to him, lest he frustrate our plans and over- 
slaugh our personality? We are entirely willing to be 
servants if the Lord will only excuse us from becoming 
sons and daughters. But you will never be so natural as 
when you are fullest of the supernatural; you will never 
be so sincerely and genuinely human as when you are 
most filled with the divine. The secret of the greatness 
of Isaiah and Paul and John was their openness to God. 
If you will master the art of receiving the divine and let 
God come fully into your lives, there is no difficulty you 
cannot pray your way through. If you will fulfill the first 
condition of conquest, I believe God will produce out of 
this college, and possibly out of this class, an Isaiah, or 
Paul, or John; you will become veritable sons and 
daughters of the Most High, incarnations of the Holy 
Spirit, naturalizing in the twentieth century the miracle of 



210 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



Pentecost and making visible on earth the Church of the 
Holy Ghost. 

If Christ presents the first law of conquest in the parable 
of the great supper, he presents the second law in the 
parable of the talents. In this parable God is represented 
as a rich householder, committing to his servants talents 
to be used during his absence; and each servant is repre- 
sented as receiving in the end additional talents in exact 
proportion to the fidelity which he has shown in using the 
riches originally committed to him. In other words, this 
parable presents as the second condition for increasing 
your powers, and perhaps as the chief condition for the 
conquest of the world, the development of the talents you 
now possess by use. Those whom the faculty to-day regard 
as the best scholars in the class will not necessarily make 
the most successful or the most useful men and women. As 
you enter upon the duties of life this fall, the world will 
not ask how much you know, but how much you can do. 
It will judge you, not by your acquisitions, but by your 
services. If the parable of the great supper shows how we 
may be filled with power, the parable of the talents teaches 
us how to utilize that power. Surely, the condition which 
Christ set forth in this second parable, and illustrated by 
his own acctivity, must not be overlooked in our plans for 
the conquest of the world. 

Moreover, a slight study of the parables of the talents 
shows that we cannot even secure large and permanent 
power unless we add to our receptivity faithfulness in the 
use of the gifts bestowed. God will surely observe the 
law revealed in the parable of the great supper. If we will 
only open our hearts and minds to him, he will fill us to 
our utmost existing capacity with himself. But if we 
desire to enlarge our capacity indefinitely — I might almost 



CONQUEKING THE WOBLD 211 



say infinitely — and if we desire to transform these gifts 
from mere external possession into everlasting qualities of 
character, then we must faithfully use the gifts as they are 
bestowed. 

We have many illustrations of the danger of separating 
the receptive from the active powers, of divorcing study 
from practice, devotion from service. In visiting the 
University of Cairo, with its seven thousand students, I 
learned of feats of memory which cannot be matched by 
any student in our university, or by any member of our 
faculty. Their power of verbal rceptivity is marvelous. 
Some of them can repeat the Koran without missing a word, 
And yet one can scarcely restrain his pity and contempt, 
not only at the failure of the university to develop the 
talents of the young men, but at the crushing out of such 
reason and original power as they come to the university 
possessed of. A Jewish rabbi said recently that the Jews 
have in the United States a few scholars who can repeat 
the Hebrew Bible verbatim from Genesis to Malachi, and 
then can repeat it backward. But, he added, these men 
have no comprehension of the Bible; they are merely 
parrots. The world does not want human parrots; it 
wants men and women who have knowledge plus something 
more. It was not enough that Dante, Goethe, and Shake- 
speare had marvelous powers of reception. By mental 
activity they assimilated all they received; and then by 
untiring industry they enriched the world by the products 
of their genius. 

I recognize the apparent conflict between the law of 
receptivity and the law of activity. Many of you already 
have experienced the conflicting claims of self-culture and 
of service. On the one side you see your needs and your 
possibilities, and you crave every hour of time and all 



212 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



your energies for personal development. On the other 
side there are reforms which some one must undertake; 
there is work in the church and in the neighborhood which 
must be done; above all there are members of your own 
household for whom you must provide. These claims 
demand active service from you instead of permitting 
leisure for self-culture. Hence the needs of others are in 
apparent conflict with your personal interests. The culti- 
vation of the art of receptivity seems inconsistent with the 
recognition of the claims of active life. But God has made 
humanity such a living organism that one cannot shirk his 
active duties without suffering on his receptive side, or 
neglect the receptive functions without failing in his active 
duties. The best scholars are uniformly those who have 
taught others as well as have been taught themselves, while 
the best teachers are those who in addition to imparting 
wisdom to others, hold their own minds open to new ideas 
and bend their energies to original work. It was upon the 
basis of the organic unity of the race, of the absolute 
identity of our personal interests and our neighbor's good, 
that Christ solved the problem between self-culture and 
service, and added to the parable of the great supper the 
parable of the talents. The clamor of the crowd undoubt- 
edly disturbed Christ's communion with the Father at 
times; on the other hand his hours of prayer must some- 
times have cut short his leisure for conversation with his 
disciples. But he recognized no conflict between the law 
of receptivity and the law of activity. On the contrary, 
he says, "For their sakes I sanctify myself/' as if his spir- 
itual culture were not for his own glorification but for 
the higher service of the world. And yet he regarded 
the cross not simply as the instrument of the races' redemp- 
tion but of his own perfection also. In answer to Herod's 



CONQUEEING THE WOELD 213 



threat to kill him he bade that tyrant do his utmost and 
closed by saying : "And the third day I am perf ected," as if 
death for the world and his own sanctification, crucifixion, 
and perfection were identical. 

We have a striking illustration of the value of the arts of 
receptivity and activity in two households of the Christian 
Church. The Quakers have cultivated as have no other 
church the receptive side of Christianity; they have laid 
supreme emphasis upon the gifts of the spirit; and they 
have their reward. No church in Christendom, in propor- 
tion to its numbers, has produced so many saints as have 
the Friends. But if the Quakers have a genius for receiv- 
ing power, the Methodists have shown a genius for using it. 
Wesley's motto for the redemption of the world was, "All 
at it, always at it, altogether at it." The one church has 
spent its lifetime tarrying at Jerusalem, the other disciplin- 
ing the nations ; the one has accepted the invitation to the 
great supper, the other has heard the Master's command, 
"Occupy till I come" ; and God shows his estimate of obedi- 
ence to the law of activity by the vast increase which he 
has vouchsafed to Methodism throughout the world. 

But we must not boast over our achievements as a 
church. Compared either with Christ's activity or with 
his last command, our movements are incredibly slow. We 
ought to pray as if there were no energy in us, as if God 
alone must redeem the world, and then we ought to work 
as if there were no God. Young friends, if you crave per- 
sonal success, you must not only observe the parable of the 
great supper, but you must adopt as your first command- 
ment "Work," and as your second commandment "Work," 
and as your third commandment "Work." If every mem- 
ber of the Christian Church would begin personal work for 
the redemption of the world and work incessantly until the 



214 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



close of life, we should present Christ to every soul on 
earth before the end of the present generation. What a 
glorious consummation of the world's history is within our 
reach! that this university and that this class might 
lead the race in divine activity ! My young friends, even 
if you have tarried at Jerusalem until you have been en- 
dowed with power from on high, even yet you will speak 
the language of the Holy Ghost, as an unconverted man 
reads the Scripture with hollow accents and with little 
power, until the words of the Spirit quiver with your own 
personal activities and experiences and the divine speech 
has become by use your native dialect. The perfection of 
the individual and the conquest of the world depend upon 
the combination of the principle embodied in the parable 
of the talents. 

Christ reveals the third condition for conquering the 
world in the parable of the good shepherd. This parable 
may be summed up in a single quotation : "The good shep- 
herd giveth his life for the sheep." 

It seems as if the first two conditions of conquering the 
w r orld, namely, receptivity and activity, complete each 
other. And there is no room for a third. But if we do 
not at first see the necessity of love, we may rest assured 
that a principle which was so frequently laid down by 
Christ, and so marvelously illustrated by his life and death, 
cannot safely be neglected by ourselves. Besides, a little 
reflection will show that love is the means by which the 
soul is able to empty itself of self and become receptive, 
and the motive which alone can inspire a Christlike 
activity. There can be no substitute for love. Nothing but 
unselfishness can lead to the self-sacrifice which the high- 
est service of the world demands. Only as we empty our- 
selves of self can we be filled with God. "Only as we lose 



CONQUERING THE WOELD 



215 



sight of all personal and temporal aims do we rise into the 
region of the universal and the eternal." The light, God's 
most beautiful gift in nature, never shows itself, but only 
the object it falls upon. 

But love is not simply negative, enabling one to empty 
himself of self; it is positive; tiie soul is molded after its 
own ideals. Alexander, falling in love with Homer's 
heroes, becomes himself a world-captain; and Napoleon, 
worshiping Alexander, becomes his ambitious brother. The 
Roman Penates represented obedience, loyalty, self-sup- 
pression, and lofty courage; and the early people, wor- 
shiping the household gods, grew in patriotism until the 
tramp of the Eoman legions shook the world. But later, 
when the Pantheon was filled with gods deifying every 
passion, the people followed their divine pattern in drunk- 
enness and lust, and the second Babylon fell. If we turn 
from the human to the divine and look reverently into the 
heart of Christ, we shall find one secret of his incarnation 
to be his love for the heavenly Father. Hence, speaking 
out of his own experience, he gave as the first command- 
ment: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind," because 
a love for God is essential to God-likeness. 

But Christ saw in our love for God another power which 
lifts us infinitely above any heights which we can reach by 
our own conscious efforts or unconscious growth toward 
the ideal which we worship. Love is not simply lifting 
things which it fills heavenward; it is a wand by which 
we touch the heart of Him who sits upon the throne of the 
universe and bring God down to us. Marvelous as it seems, 
the law that love begets love holds true even up to the 
throne of God. "If a man love me," says Christ, "he will 
keep my word; and my Father will love him; and we will 



216 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



come unto him and make our abode with him." If, after 
complying with the first condition and opening our hearts 
to God, and after complying with the second condition and 
walking in obedience before him, keeping his words, then 
we comply with the third condition and fall in love with 
him — then, not with pity only, but with admiration and en- 
joyment, the Father will love that soul, and he will come 
unto him and abide with him. Love is the human power 
by which the miracle of sanctification takes place and our 
divine sonship is sealed and our incarnation commences. 
Do you not see that love is the means by which the law of 
receptivity is fulfilled? 

Again, love only can supply the motive which the parable 
of the talents and the second commandment enjoins. Even 
if we could prosecute our Christian activities without love, 
our labors and sacrifices would miss their goal. Without 
self-sacrifice our religious industry would become tainted 
with ambition, our spiritual gifts would be exchanged for 
the instruments of worldly power, and we should sink from 
the high places in the Kingdom to that worldly platform 
where selfish spirits are dazed by Satan with the phantoms 
of time and sense. The Jesuits are the most indefatigable 
workers whom any ecclesiastical organism ever has de- 
veloped. Yet Jesuitism, losing the Christlike spirit and 
guided by earthly ambition, has nearly fulfilled Hobbes's 
epigram and reduced the mother church to "the mere ghost 
of the Eoman empire sitting on the grave thereof We 
need to pray for the spirit of self-sacrifice, lest the blunder 
of the Jesuits be repeated in our Protestant folds. Again, 
even if some substitute for love could keep our own hearts 
pure, nothing else than unselfish devotion to others would 
win their hearts and accomplish the end toward which all 
Christian activity is directed. Even Christ, with infinite 



CONQUEEING THE WOKLD 



217 



resources at his command, knew no higher means than love 
for establishing his kingdom on the earth. When he 
found an eternal republic among free-willed men, he sum- 
moned not the serried hosts of heaven to his aid, but he 
himself came down from heaven to us, and served us, and 
bore with us, and died with us ; and thus he won our hearts. 

You recall the strange prophecy of Isaiah: "And it 
shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain 
of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the 
mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all 
nations shall flow unto it." What a paradox is here — the 
nations of the earth flowing uphill ! What is this prophecy 
of the Eepublic of Christ but a revelation of the heavenly 
law of levitation overcoming the earthly law of gravita- 
tion? What is it but a picture of the degrading force of 
death overborne by the upward sweep of the power of an 
endless life? The highest science catches glimpses of the 
law, for even in the vegetable kingdom sap flows upward 
when the trees are alive ; and Christ's ascension reveals the 
power of love to draw Christ to his Father's throne. 
Isaiah caught a vision of this law, and in the paradoxical 
figure portrayed the power of Christ's self-sacrifice to draw 
men up to his own everlasting heights of holiness. 

In the Loggia of the Vatican at Eome is Eaphael's 
picture of "Christ's Triumph over Paganism." The execu- 
tion of the picture is surpassed by the matchless colors of 
his "Transfiguration" and of the Sistine Madonna. But 
Eaphael's conception of the triumph of Christ is worthy 
of the genius of Saint John. Paganism is represented as a 
marble statue of a beautiful, sensuous goddess. Christi- 
anity is represented by no word of command, by no sign of 
outward power. It is symbolized by Christ hanging upon 
his cross, his head just fallen in death. Here is Chris- 



218 



THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



tianity at its lowest point of external power. But the 
stone image has fallen and broken to fragments before this 
vision of purity and self-sacrificing love. Thinking upon 
this picture, some of you will recall the words of Heine. 
After quoting the Homeric description of the feast of the 
gods, Heine continues : "Then suddenly approached, pant- 
ing, a pale Jew, with drops of blood on his brow, with a 
crown of thorns on his head, and a great cross laid on his 
shoulders ; and he threw the cross on the high tables of the 
gods, so that the golden cups tottered and the gods became 
dumb and pale, and grew ever paler until at last they 
melted into vapor." Thus before the cross the high gods 
vanish one by one and leave Christ alone in the Pantheon. 

Professor Stevenson called attention the other evening 
to another picture in Saint John, which surpasses the 
paradox of Isaiah, or the picture of Raphael. Isaiah, with 
the boldness of inspired genius, dared first to picture the 
Son of man as the mighty God, the everlasting Father ; and 
then portraying Christ's love for us, Isaiah dared to picture 
this mighty God as a sheep before her shearers dumb, and 
as a lamb led to the slaughter. And then John, with a 
genius bolder than Isaiah's, takes up the very figure which 
Isaiah had used of the slain lamb, and with the mightiest 
paradox in literature, places this lamb upon the throne of 
the universe ! Was ever there such another picture of the 
omnipotence of love? 

You already see that the message of the day is already 
summed up, not only in the three parables uttered by 
Christ, but more perfectly still by Christ himself. The 
elder theologians called him Prophet, Priest, and King. 
He was the only begotten Son of God. He was divine by 
inheritance, but Christ like ourselves had freedom of will. 
His inherited relationship to God did not compel his spir- 



CONQUERING THE WORLD 



219 



itual likeness to the Father any more than the physical 
descent of Aaron Burr from J onathan Edwards compelled 
the renegade to become a saint. It was by the observance 
of the law of the parable of the great supper, it was by the 
opening of his mind and heart to God, it was by continued 
prayer and unceasing communion with the Father that 
Christ became the Son of God, the Head of a new hu- 
manity. Skeptics like Baur and Renan agree with the 
older theologians in one of his offices at least and crown 
him King of men. The church goes beyond the agnostics 
and worships him as God. This divine height Christ 
reached by his obedience to the law of receptivity. Is not 
that law worth keeping by you and me ? 

But if Christ's character is divine, his activity is no less 
supernatural. He was too busy to eat, too much engaged 
in praying and planning for our redemption to sleep. 
You remember that prophecy portrayed him as a root out 
of a dry ground, with no form of comeliness that we should 
desire him. This divine weariness which marked the brow 
of Jesus, was due to the fact that he could not rest in God- 
likeness for himself, and leave us in our sins and miseries, 
but with infinite pity and helpfulness carried our sins and 
bore our sicknesses. He himself exclaimed in the midst of 
his unfinished tasks, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten 
me up." Christ was the most perfect personal worker the 
world ever has seen; he possessed the divine power of in- 
spiring others with his energy. No other being on earth 
ever took such unpromising material and created such a 
band of disciples as did the Master. His teachings have 
spread over a wider area and they influence more intel- 
ligent peoples than the words of any other being who ever 
trod the earth. Such onlookers as Stuart Mill and Pro- 
fessor Seeley and Mr. Leckey agree with the older theo- 



220 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



logians in the second office of Christ and recognize him 
emphatically as the teacher of humanity, as the prophet 
of mankind. that you and I may learn Christ's secret 
of service and multiply our talents and increase our use- 
fulness after the divine pattern ! 

But Christ himself recognized that although he was 
one with God and taught with authority, although he was 
King of the race and Prophet of mankind, nevertheless, if 
he would win the hearts of men, he must become the High 
Priest also and offer himself for us. The necessity of 
death was upon him. At the transfiguration, when there 
appeared unto him Moses and Elijah — messengers from 
the heavenly world — the three talked together of what? 
Not of the fact that God had given him the Spirit beyond 
measure, not of the fact that he had set in motion activities 
which would reach to the bounds of the earth and to the 
end of time, but of the decease which he must accomplish 
at Jerusalem. Christ became obedient to the law of love, 
even unto death. And so to-day Christ's throne is not that 
spot on the banks of the Jordan where the heavens were 
opened and the Spirit descended upon him; not the stone 
between the horns of Hattim, where he sat and spoke the 
immortal words of the Sermon on the Mount; it is Gol- 
gotha, it is the cross upon which he hung in agony and died 
for us. Prom the Hill of the Skull he redated history and 
reorganized society. 

We must not try to fathom the mysteries of the Trinity. 
Especially must we not attempt to divide up the Godhead 
and assign certain attributes to the Father and others to 
the Son, and others to the Holy Spirit. All the Godhead 
is in each, and each is in both the others. But as we rever- 
ently think of the Trinity, do you not see at a glance that 
character, the first condition of conquering the world, is 



CONQUERING THE WORLD 221 



peculiarly represented by the holiness of the Father? 
that our activity, the second condition of conquest, is only 
an imitation of the universal presence and ceaseless work of 
the Holy Spirit in the world? and that love, the third 
condition of conquest, finds its highest embodiment in 
Christ dying upon the cross? May some of this infinite 
fullness of the Godhead dwell in us ! 

Members of the Class of Ninety-seven: I have been 
absent from you during the year, and have not enjoyed 
that personal fellowship and intimate acquaintance which I 
have had with members of former classes. For this reason 
I desired Dean Williams to deliver the final message to-day. 
But if I have seen less of you than of some former classes, 
I have prayed more for you; and if love gives the right of 
speech, I may add a few personal words. You stand upon 
the threshold of an intellectual, affectional, and perhaps 
a spiritual crisis. You have reached the heights from 
which the paths of life diverge. Next Sunday at this 
hour you will be widely scattered. At some hour between 
now and then you will suddenly realize that the Class of 
'97 is never to meet on earth again, that you are not to 
return to college, that hundreds of familiar faces and 
friendly voices are gradually to fade from your minds, 
that you are to enter upon new activities and strange ex- 
periences. I pity you, if your hearts are not stirred and if 
you do not spend some hours in thoughtful, solemn medi- 
tation during your first week after graduation. Going out 
upon untried seas, I wish you would remember, if only for 
a little while, the parable of the great supper, the parable 
of the talents, and the story of the good shepherd. The 
first parable, if mastered, will enable you to realize your 
ideal of scholarship ; the second will make you successful in 
action; the third will lift you to the plane of Lincoln and 



222 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



Socrates and Paul, who crowned wisdom and character 
by love, and through their deaths made their words im- 
mortal. In the spiritual realm the fulfillment of the 
first condition will make you a saint ; the fulfillment of the 
second will turn the saint into a teacher, a reformer, a 
missionary, a captain of the world's industries, a tireless 
worker for the Father; the fulfillment of the third will 
turn the missionary into the martyr and will enable him to 
fill up that which remaineth behind of the sacrifices of 
Christ. "Alas!" I hear some of you murmuring, "the 
lesson is too hard for me. I cannot fulfill these high con- 
ditions. I despair of becoming a Lincoln, a Socrates, a 
Paul." But, granting that fear sometimes gets the better 
of your faith, admitting that you do not aspire to saint- 
hood, or desire earthly fame — though in your secret hearts 
you all have aspirations — but admitting that you some- 
times despair of the highest ideals, still you desire to 
achieve some growth in character. But the secret of 
growth, whether the increase be small or great, is the art 
of receptivity. Again, you certainly covet for yourselves 
some measure of achievement. But external success, 
whether small or great, is won by the method embodied 
in the parable of the talents. Finally, I am sure you 
covet the love of some people, whether you attempt to 
satisfy your heart hunger by the love of a world, or limit to 
the devotion of one individual soul to you. But the divine 
art of winning the love of a single soul or of the world is 
self-sacrificing love. Hence you will all follow the lesson 
laid down this morning. The lesson is for the timid as 
well as for the heroic souls in the class. But, members of 
the class of ninety-seven, we are persuaded of the best 
things of you. I am sure that in your secret hearts you all 
feel your divinity, and all aspire to be kings and queens. 



CONQUERING THE WORLD 



222 



What better wish, then, can I express this morning, than 
to pray that, like Christ, you may be able to say to the 
Father at the close of life : "I have finished the work thou 
gavest me to do;" and that like him you may also become 
redeemers of the race? 



XII 



DEATH ABOLISHED 1 

"Who abolished death and brought life and incorruption to 

light."— 2 Tim. 1. 10. 

I need not dwell upon the apparent triumph of death. 
Some of you have called the best physicians; you have 
given your loved ones the most tender care; you have 
watched day and night, lest the great enemy should sur- 
prise you and steal away your friend by stealth. Despite 
all efforts you have been defeated. You came alone to the 
services to-day. Your thoughts turn with a shudder to the 
form moldering in the grave. You know something of the 
dread monster Death. 

Worse still for the race, you are not alone in your 
mourning. We often think that no sorrow is like our 
sorrow. But every person living has met this enemy and 
suffered at his hands. How many present have never lost 
a father or mother, a brother or sister, a son or a daughter, 
or a friend ? No hand is raised. 

Worst of all, we ourselves must die. Where are the 
tribes that roamed over these hills, fished in the Olentangy, 
and camped near the famous spring two generations ago? 
All gone. Where are the first white men who settled in 
Delaware? They too are gone. We also are melting 
away like frost before the sunlight. We have come from 
the land of dreams. We enter a land of darkness to our 
human vision. We have floated down the stream of time 

1 Easter Sermon before the Students of Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
versity, April, 1890. 

224 



DEATH ABOLISHED 



225 



out of impenetrable mists. The tide is swiftly carrying us 
out into an unknown sea. All life here is mortal. Man is 
born to die. Senator and ragpicker, rich and poor, strong 
and weak, old and young at last find a common level — four 
feet beneath the sod. Your bodies will become dust. Out 
of hands which are beautiful this afternoon will spring 
violets. Out of sockets, now filled with sparkling eyes, 
the anemones will grow, while grass will strive to hide 
decaying forms with mantles of living green. 

President Warren once said, "In one of the Pyramids of 
Egypt is a narrow passage way. On the right hewn stone, 
on the left hewn stone; above hewn stone; below hewn 
stone — so closely fitted together that you cannot insert a 
knife-blade between the layers. Now, descending a few 
steps and occasionally ascending a few steps, and then on 
and on this granite pathway runs, until it ends at last 
in a burial chamber with an open coffin. In such stony 
limitations walks each one of us, with this only difference 
that, however gloomy the way, there is no turning back. 
On and on and on you walk in stony pathways, and each 
step in darkness, until at last you reach your burial 
chamber and your open coffin. 'He hath hedged me about 
that I cannot get out. He hath enclosed my ways with 
hewn stone/ 99 I sometimes wonder that in such a world 
as this flowers bloom, and birds sing, and children play, 
and men laugh. 

"0," cries some timid soul, "such thoughts are horrible 
for Easter day. I will not think of them." It is a strange 
custom which makes it impolite for people in modern 
society to talk about this deepest experience of a human 
soul or to refer to our dear departed ones. It shows the 
weakness of our human nature. Ostriches when closely 
pursued by hunters hide their heads in the sand and do 



226 THE DEMAND FOE CHRIST 



not see their danger. But the fatal marksman draws nigh. 
Be silly birds who will, we at least will not attempt to pur- 
chase joy upon even the Easter day by turning our backs 
upon the darkness and mystery which surround us. Like 
children, the world laughs to-day and cries to-morrow. 
But we so fail to embrace the whole of life in our vision 
that we have no word in our language to express cry- 
laughter or happy-sorrow. 

The gloom which we associate with the thought of death 
arises, not from our too large experience, but, rather, from 
our limited views of life. Jesus had the vision of his cross 
before him almost from the beginning of his ministry. He 
could not have read the prophecy of Isaiah, "He is brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter," and have listened to the words 
of John the Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world," He could not have 
dwelt upon countless other prophecies of his suffering, 
without catching at the very beginning of his ministry 
some glimpses of Calvary. And yet Christ's tone through- 
out his life is one of victory. While Christ saw death, he 
saw himself also bursting the bars of the tomb and emerg- 
ing victorious from the conquest. Shelley with fine in- 
sight has caught the spirit with which the Master viewed 
this struggle : 

"A Power from the unknown God; 
A Promethean conqueror came, 
Like a triumphal path he trod 
The thorns of death and shame." 

Let the entrance to this solemn pyramid be even more 
gloomy than President Warren has pictured ; but let there 
be a door on the farther side of the chamber opening out 
into green fields with living waters, opening into that 



DEATH ABOLISHED 



227 



paradise where the trees yield their fruit every month and 
the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations; 
opening to that land where the aged grow young, and the 
young are sinless, and partings are no more — and then the 
earthly pilgrims will make the walls of the solemn 
sepulcher ring with joy, as they march with triumphant 
tread toward the land of beauty and of song. President 
Merrick in a poem presented to Mrs. Bashford this morn- 
ing has so happily expressed this thought that without his 
knowledge or consent I make bold to copy a few of his 
ringing lines : 

"Who shall roll away the stone? 
Nay, but 'tis already done; 
From his mansion in the skies 
Down an angel swiftly flies. 

"Lo, the tomb is opened now; 
Christ comes forth, and on his brow 
Bright doth shine the crown to tell 
How he spoiled the powers of hell. 

"Loud hosannas let us raise; 
Joyful anthems to his praise; 
He for man resigned his breath; 
He for man has conquered death. 

"Christ is risen from the grave; 
Let the palms of victory wave; 
Christ ascends, triumphant King! 
Lo, the heavenly arches ring. 

"Now the gates are open wide; 
Lo, with him his saints abide; 
Strike the cymbals, chime the bells, 
While each heart with rapture swells. 



228 



THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



"Holy Christ, incarnate Lord, 
By the heavenly host adored, 
We on earth thy praise would sing; 
At thy feet our tribute bring." 

1. Christ came to this world, not simply to reveal to us 
the law of love and die for our redemption, but also to 
bring "life and incorruption to light." 

The first difference between Christ and other human 
beings is that his whole life was shaped not "after the law 
of a carnal commandment, but by the power of an endless 
life." To his vision there were no veils of time and sense. 
By his resurrection he lifts the veil of time for us also, and 
reveals our eternal possibilities. He thus makes life infi- 
nite in quantity. It is difficult to realize what Christ has 
done for us in this respect, because we were born in a 
Christian land and have been taught the doctrine of im- 
mortality from our childhood. A close study of the lead- 
ing civilizations of the world at the time of Christ and of 
heathen nations since will reveal the fact that people be- 
come almost uniformly demoralized without a belief in 
immortality. Destroy this hope, and the world would 
again adopt the old doctrine of the Epicureans : "Let us eat 
and drink, for to-morrow we die." I doubt if even the 
doctrines of love and purity and forgiveness, all combined, 
had the elevating power that this doctrine of immortality 
possessed. What was it that nerved the Christians in their 
first contest with the iron power of Rome? It was the 
feeling that they need not be afraid of him who could 
only kill the body and who by that very act would simply 
usher their souls into eternal felicity. The power of the 
Christian faith to transform the world has depended more 
largely than any of us dream upon this infinite extension 



DEATH ABOLISHED 



229 



of our hope through the resurrection of Christ. Think for 
a moment of the transforming power of faith in its lower 
stages. What, for instance, is the difference between 
barbarism and civilization ? Is it not simply this, that the 
barbarian is a child of the present, while the civilized man 
is the heir of the future ? The Indians who fished in our 
river and hunted over these hills regarded the game which 
they caught and the prizes which they took in war as so 
much spoil to be immediately consumed before further 
enterprises should be undertaken. Barbarism is character- 
ized by absence of all recognition of the future. Only as 
a race rises to the conception of its possession of the future 
does it take its first step in civilization. Faith, then, the 
power by which man realizes the future and lives for the 
future, is the first requisite for civilization. 

Faith is also necessary for any individual progress. 
What is the difference between the student and the boy who 
is regarding the golden opportunities of youth as simply 
so many holidays to be frittered away in jollity and fun ? 
The loafer is the child of the present; the student is the 
heir of the future. Earthly ambitions indeed fail to lift 
us to the loftiest planes of being. But even these earthly 
hopes, the cultivation of temperance and self-restraint 
to-day for the sake of prosperity to-morrow, the training of 
oneself to put aside one's first earnings for the sake of 
future wealth, the pursuit of study for four or six years for 
the sake of future honor — -even these worldly ambitions and 
earthly faiths exercise a transforming power over human 
lives. We sometimes wonder why God preferred the cal- 
culating Jacob to the good-natured Esau. It was just this 
quality of faith in the former, and the fact that Esau was 
simply the child of the senses, that led God to choose Jacob 
and reject Esau. Unless you can exercise faith in at least 



230 THE DEMAND FOE CHEIST 



this lower sense, there is no possibility of progress for you. 
Now, if the future with its promises of life and honor, with 
its prophecies of home and of a cultivated manhood and 
womanhood, exercises such a transforming power over 
human lives, what think you must be the elevating power 
of Christ's revelation of man's eternal destiny ? 

Immortality may furnish us a standard for our conduct. 
Many of you are now forming plans and some of you are 
coming to me with questions regarding your work. If for 
you the veil of time could be rent, if your faith were only 
strong enough to realize your eternal possibilities, and if 
you would only plan for this eternal career, you would 
make no serious mistake in regard to your present duties. 
Men often try to control others by insisting upon their 
responsibilities, by laying heavier and heavier burdens 
upon them and demanding more and more exacting duties 
at their hands. Christ seems to reveal to us a system of 
Christian dynamics radically opposed to the method of the 
moralist. Instead of insisting upon our burdens, he re- 
veak to us our powers. He declares our immortality. He 
makes us heirs of God. 0, my young friends, the burdens 
of life are indeed heavy, but the divine power is infinitely 
greater than these earthly burdens ! Once realize that you 
are children of eternity, that you have careers of endless 
duration opening before you, and then I am sure that the 
burdens of the present must sit lightly upon your shoulders. 
Plan your lives, not simply as temporal structures, but as 
eternal habitations of God's spirit, and then I am sure that 
while the walls may be far from completion, yet that you 
will lay eternal foundations upon which temples not made 
with hands may stand forever. Do you catch some 
glimpses of what Christ aimed to do in bringing life and 
incorruption to light? 



DEATH ABOLISHED 



231 



2. Christ strove not only to make life infinite in 
quantity but to transform its quality. 

The old version of our text reads: "He hath abolished 
death and brought life and immortality to light." Un- 
doubtedly, the Greek here rendered "immortality" does 
refer to endless existence. But the first meaning of that 
word is incorruption, purity, holiness. The Eevisers there- 
fore have improved the translation by making the text 
read: "He hath abolished death and brought life and 
incorruption to light." It is, indeed, possible for you to 
be a child of faith and yet thoroughly worldly in your 
spirit. Any man who rises above the dominion of the 
senses and lives by the power of that which is unseen is a 
child of faith. Many men who do this are filled with 
simply earthly ambitions. Hence faith alone is not suffi- 
cient for salvation. Salvation comes only by a faith in 
Christ. There is another-worldliness which is quite as 
selfish as this-worldliness. Indeed, we have seen men 
inside the church who seemed to be speculating upon the 
divine promises; who were denying themselves pleasures 
for the sake of infinite gains. These differ from the world- 
lings only in being a little longer-headed in their schemes. 
The Eoman Catholic Church with her doctrine of purga- 
tory, with her assumption that she could deliver men from 
the pains of hell, met the kingdoms of this world and 
conquered them. But did she thus conquer the world by 
the spirit of the Master ? Nay ; on the contrary, she con- 
quered the world simply by adopting the spirit of the world. 
In fact, the Eoman Catholic Church is not the only church 
exposed to this danger. It is possible for all of us to 
have our vision extended infinitely before us without this 
vision exercising great power to lift us upward. Christ, 
therefore, did not bring immortality alone to light. He, 



232 THE DEMAND FOE CHKIST 



rather, revealed to us immortality as arising from incor- 
ruption or purity. Hence the word "eternal" is used again 
and again in the New Testament with primary reference 
to the quality of the life and not simply to the quantity of 
the life. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 
"He that belie veth on him that sent me hath eternal life 
and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of 
death into life." John also writes: "This is the victory 
that overcometh the world, even our faith." But fearing 
that the idea of immortality might lead to other-worldli- 
ness, and with this higher conception of the incorruption in 
mind he adds, "Who is he that overcometh the world but 
he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ?" It is not 
simply the belief in an endless existence but the Spirit of 
Christ which will enable one to conquer worldliness. Two 
fundamental motives seem to shape Christ's life. First, 
as we have already said, he was made not after the law 
of a carnal commandment but by the power of an endless 
life. There was no veil between him and the future. His 
earthly life differed from our earthly life because even here 
he realized that he had entered upon an eternal career. 
All his daily conduct was shaped by this conception of his 
eternal life. But another motive was even stronger in 
molding Christ's life than his conception of eternity. He 
looked not only forward but he looked upward. He not 
only lived with the future as present but he lived in daily 
communion with the heavenly Father. Accordingly, he 
tried to do two works for us: to reveal our eternal possi- 
bilities and to bring us into unbroken communion with 
God. The work which I have mentioned was the first work 
in Christ's estimation. He speaks of immortality appar- 
ently as if it were a corollary of our life in God. He 



DEATH ABOLISHED 



233 



makes the union of the soul with God the great object of 
human life. He not only rent the veil which separates 
the present from the future but he rent the veil which 
separates this earthly life from the heavenly life which is 
just above it. He not only advanced the race onward but 
he contributed infinitely to the uplifting of the race to the 
heights of heaven and holiness. This is what John meant 
when, after declaring that the victory which overcomes the 
world is our faith, he added to his statement by declaring 
that only a faith in Christ and communion with God 
through faith could free us, not simply from the dominion 
of the present, but from the spirit of selfishness which 
would take possession of eternity itself. Do you catch 
some glimpses of what Paul meant when he wrote, "He 
hath abolished death and brought life and incorruption 
to light"? Do you see that Christ by his resurrection 
aimed not simply to add to the quantity of life but to 
change radically its quality ? These are two thoughts upon 
which our minds should dwell upon every Easter day. 

3. Lastly, what are some of the duties arising from the 
contemplation of these two thoughts? First it seems to 
me that the two together furnish the only proper standard 
for human life. I do not say that your plans should not 
be changed this week if you knew this earthly life would 
close for you next Saturday night. If there were only six 
more days of earthly life for you, I could not advise you 
to spend these in simply acquiring the mental discipline of 
Greek or Latin or mathematics, however valuable such 
discipline will be if you spend twenty years upon this 
earth. But while you might change the external acts, I 
am sure, on the other hand, that if you needed to change 
the spirit in which you are doing your work, then your 
present work is radically wrong. It is a grievous mistake 



234 THE DEMAND FOR CHRIST 



for a young man to go through college and study for a pro- 
fession and find out only after ten years' experience in 
that profession that he has made a wrong choice for life. 
It is a far more grievous mistake for a young man to 
neglect these early opportunities for study and find out at 
thirty or forty that he is doomed to drudgery when God 
intended him to be a prince among men. But how small 
are these mistakes compared with the mistakes which 
possibly some of us are making, of forming plans for life 
which cannot be adhered to throughout eternity, of choos- 
ing some work with reference to its earthly aspects instead 
of in reference to its eternal possibilities. But it is not 
sufficient that your work be planned with reference to the 
future only, even though you embrace eternity in your 
vision. It must be planned with reference to an eternity 
in which God is the ruler and Christ's character is the law 
of conduct. Every human being acts with reference to 
some standard. Even the fop is governed by the poor, 
fickle standard of the fashion of to-day. The politician 
acts with reference to that variable standard which he calls 
public opinion, and is ever listening to catch the hum of 
approval or the murmur of discontent from his fellow men. 
The scholar is ever measuring his achievements by the lofty 
standard of truth. But you and I upon this resurrection 
day must not stoop to low standards of fashion or of ex- 
ternal circumstances. We cannot even rest content with the 
scholar's standard of abstract truth. We must adopt 
nothing less than the standard of spiritual helpfulness for 
the measurement for our acts upon earth. How sad will 
be the disappointment, how great the confusion of the 
multitude who have been asking the question, "Is this 
course convenient or popular or successful?" when they 
reach that world in which the only question will be, Is this 



DEATH ABOLISHED 



235 



conduct Christlike ? We are already in that world. Stand- 
ing with Christ to-day by the side of the rent tomb, we can 
look through upon our eternal possibilities. Spiritual life 
has already begun for us. Our citizenship is in heaven, 
and we are living unworthy of our privileges as sons and 
daughters of God, unless we are adopting heaven's 
standard for our daily conduct. 

Hence, in view of our fuller entrance into the heavenly 
life, there are certain duties which peculiarly belong to 
the present. In the divine economy God doubtless has 
given us certain opportunities here which will probably 
never come again. What are some of these earthly tasks? 
One of them must be the conquest of the sensual and the 
beastly in us. Many of us, indeed, are pressed with the 
contests which arise from our physical environments. We 
are immersed in the flesh. We are subject to daily tempta- 
tions which we are not able to conquer without constant 
fighting, nor to yield to without misery and shame. What 
light does the vision of heaven and of eternity throw upon 
this struggle? Perhaps many are encouraged by the fact 
that they presently shall be freed from the dominion of 
the flesh to think that this contest is not important. "What 
though I now yield to temptations arising through the 
senses?" they say; "soon I shall reach that land where I 
shall be freed from this physical contest." That may, in- 
deed, be true. But how poor heaven will be to you if, 
when God subjected you to the struggle of temptations 
arising from the senses for only a few brief years of your 
eternal career, you utterly failed to make this conquest 
during this earthly life! As your spiritual strength be- 
comes greater in the heavenly life, you will doubtless again 
and again wish for the opportunity of engaging in the 
conflict which comes through the dominion of the senses. 



236 THE DEMAND FOK CHEIST 



But the time for that conflict never will come again. Vic- 
tories over the flesh won here will add fresh contentment to 
the peace of heaven. Defeats now suffered will offer no 
opportunity in all the infinite years of immortality for 
their retrieval. 

I am sure that another class of duties peculiarly belongs 
to the present, namely, the duties of sympathy and confi- 
dence and help for our fellow men. If sorrow is to be 
banished from heaven, if misunderstandings are there to 
disappear, if we are to know the character of our brethren 
without mistake, then there cannot be upon the other side 
such necessity for charity and for sympathy with our 
struggling fellow men as exists to-day. Opportunities to 
help your brethren now neglected may never recur in 
heaven. The most civilized lands are just now hesitating 
and trembling at the problems of socialism and of probable 
anarchy which confront them. What is the meaning of 
these strange events? Is it not simply this, that God is 
calling upon the modern world, not only through his 
world but through his providence, to put in practice the 
doctrine of universal brotherhood? If the rich and the 
strong and talented could realize that this earthly stage of 
our career may afford the only opportunity through all 
eternity to wipe away the tears from a brother's face, to 
help men to comprehend the Fatherhood of God and to 
believe in the home in heaven, to soothe the sorrowing 
and to manifest a generous confidence in struggling breth- 
ren whose victory is not yet assured, surely the world would 
spring to meet this new opportunity which is arising, and 
would make all eternity richer by the discharge of these 
duties of sympathy and helpfulness which belong to time. 
If you and I ever reach that land where all tears are 
wiped from all faces, where there shall be no more want 



DEATH ABOLISHED 



237 



or suffering, how rich will be the joys of that everlasting 
home if we can reflect that during the few years in which 
we too were struggling we then were willing to divide the 
last crust with a fellow sufferer and to use our failing 
strength in passing a cup of cold water to cool the parched 
lips of some fellow pilgrim on the journey home. 

I am sure too that the opportunity is afforded here of 
manifesting a faith in God, which may never arise here- 
after. When the veil of the earthly flesh becomes trans- 
parent, and you shall know even as you are known, surely 
the joy of that perfect knowledge must be dimmed some- 
what, if we remember that in the darkness of this earthly 
life we could not fully trust that heavenly Father. In the 
sunshine of the eternal world you will never again have the 
opportunities for trusting God which come to you in the 
darkness of your present trials. The Eev. J. H. Thorn 
has admirably expressed this thought in one of his splendid 
sermons : "I do not mean that faith in God can be super- 
seded, but that hereafter the evidence may be so ample, we 
may so live in the light of his goodness, so come to under- 
stand whatever has been trying or mysterious here, that no 
matter of experience could be more certain to us than that 
the hopes of the pure in heart are the invitations and 
promises of their Inspirer, already accomplished in the 
eternal Will. When God shall unveil his face, and remove 
the screens of discipline, and all uncertainty shall have 
forever disappeared, one shadow may remain which heaven 
itself cannot then shine away — the remembrance of our 
past distrust, the remembrance that we doubted him when 
for the moment the appearances were against him, darkness 
beneath his feet, and the cloud before his throne." 

Some of you are weary and heavy-laden. The burdens 
are too heavy for you. But if when the heart is bursting 



238 THE DEMAND FOR CHEIST 



with grief you can still cry out, "Though he slay me yet 
will I trust him/' you will add to the blessedness of God 
himself. It will be easy to trust God when you stand 
upon the hills of paradise with the light of his countenance 
falling upon your path. But now and here, when the clouds 
lower ominously and the night winds blow, when in utter 
loneliness you see no promise of a helper or dawn, and 
your soul seems to have entered upon eternal night, if still 
you can believe that God is love, you will acquire an insight 
into the heart of the heavenly Father which all the light of 
heaven might not be able to reveal. 

Emerson, in one of his splendid periods, cried out, 
"Hitch your chariot to a star." But with a spiritual buoy- 
ancy which puts to shame our fears, Emerson was not hope- 
ful enough. You are to hitch your chariot, not to a star, 
but to Him who made stars and suns and guides them in 
their courses. 

Standing beside his rent tomb Jesus invites us to-day 
to start with him upon eternal careers; and that our 
progress may reach unimaginable heights as well as infinite 
lengths he offers us union with God through himself, and 
then summons us to be perfect as the heavenly Father is 
perfect. Can we not all repeat the poet's answer to this 
lofty summons? 

"So near is grandeur to our dust, 

So nigh is God to man, 
When Duty whispers 'Lot Thou must/ 
The soul replies: 'I can.' " 



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